The Sunday Mail
I always dismissed police officers enforcing lockdown regulations as a bunch of overzealous party spoilers who do not want to see people unwinding and enjoying their beers — until Covid-19 struck where it hurts the most.
Only last week, I lost my eldest brother who played a key role in shaping the man I am today to the pandemic.
It dawned on me even more that the disease is real.
If anything, law enforcement agents need to help ensure everyone is safe.
In the twinkling of an eye, my brother’s victories, conquests and triumphs became just a memory, and the burial he got was not what giants like him deserve.
Were it not for the pandemic, I would have arranged a farewell banquet for him and hired an orchestra to play golden harps as his casket was lowered into the grave.
Instead, strangers donning hazmat suits, who seemed to be in a hurry, did the job for us.
They simply carried the casket from the hearse to the lowering machine and within five minutes the job was done.
There was nothing we could do as we stood in one corner wailing like helpless kindergarten children.
But it is not only my family that has been dealt a cruel hand by the pandemic.
Hundreds of people countrywide have similarly lost their loved ones.
All over the world, bodies are piling up in mortuaries, while funeral companies are being overwhelmed. According to statistics from the Ministry of Health and Child Care, nearly 900 people have succumbed to the pandemic, which is showing a ferocious appetite to claim even more lives.
But there is something we can do about it!
We cannot fold our hands and watch the enemy do as “he” wishes.
People are dying every hour and the thought of families that are being left without anyone to take care of them anymore is just too much to ignore.
The Government has made the much-need intervention by introducing a lockdown as part of efforts to clip the wings of a pandemic that is threatening to wipe the human race from the face of the earth.
We can live longer by simply following the rules. Covid-19 is now on our doorstep and we need to be vigilant to win the war.
It takes you and me to heed the rules to survive. Let us wear face masks, observe social distancing, sanitise and follow prescribed health guidelines.
We need not behave like fools that cut the tree branches they are sitting on.
“Mutsvagi webasa ndiwe, achabuda ndiwe
Uchachema nani? Wazvikanyira wega hona
Munwi ndiwe, mudhakwi ndiwe
Uchachema nani, wazvikorerwa wega hona,” sang Alick Macheso in his smashing hit “Ndiwe Basa” off the album “Ndezvashe-eh”.
True to the song, some decisions we make may haunt us for life.
If there is a time to co-operate with the law, it is now. In fact, we need to assist lockdown enforcers with essentials like fuel, transport and any other resources.
And helping a person who is not an essential service worker cheat their way into the central business district is being cruel to ourselves.
Let us follow the law and help arrest this pandemic before we litter the world with widows, widowers and orphans.
Inotambika mughetto.
