Until then relatively spared, Zimbabwe sees the number of Covid cases explode with the appearance of the Omicron variant. To protect itself, the country imposes a quarantine, to the chagrin of its diaspora a few days before the holidays.
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With the Omicron variant, Zimbabwe records its biggest rise in infections since the start of the Covid-19 epidemic. Currently, one in three tests carried out is positive, and this while the number of tests carried out continues to increase. The third wave last July caused just 3,100 infections per day in the country. This time, the 4,000 cases have already been reached. In one week, the number of cases has multiplied by 17! And here the vaccination is a failure. Only three of the fifteen million Zimbabweans are vaccinated, as the campaign was launched last February. The goal was to reach ten million vaccinated by the end of this year.
Faced with this wave, the University of Zimbabwe announced the end of face-to-face classes as of December 9. The country’s justice system is also affected, hearings in several district courts will thus be suspended. With around two million Zimbabweans living in South Africa and traveling regularly between the two countries, Zimbabwe was particularly vulnerable to this mutation that emerged within the Rainbow Nation.
Installing a sanitary cordon around the country therefore became a necessity. Now, according to the government spokesperson, anyone entering the country must respect a ten-day quarantine in a hotel at their own expense. The 250,000 Zimbabwean workers in South Africa are obviously the first victims of these measures, especially during the holiday season, as is the large diaspora. However, very few of them can afford to spend ten days of “forced leave” in a hotel, let alone pay for the stay.
This obviously upset all vacation plans with family or friends. Many Zimbabweans, according to VOA News, denounce this measure. It is also a serious blow to the fragile national economy which relies heavily on the inflow of foreign currency from its expatriate nationals. Because this quarantine obligation concerns travelers from all countries.
Paradoxically, at the same time, South Africa sees its suspicion diminish. The United Kingdom which placed it on the “red list of travel” would be on the verge of reducing the measure. In fact, the threat is less strong on the dangerousness of the variant, and in any case Omicron has already spread widely in the world, which no longer justifies putting South Africa under the ban of the nations. An analysis that obviously Zimbabwe does not yet share.