by Vusizwe Motsa
When the outbreak of an unknown disease was first identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019, nobody really paid much attention and we all thought it was ‘’their disease’’. I remember someone making a joke that China wasted an opportunity to name the virus with a name that recognises its genesis easily, like ‘’Kung-Fu virus’’. A plethora of jokes were made and those ludicrous jokes were funny until the pandemic hit Italy, spreading across the World and eventually our African continent. Suddenly, we woke up and paid attention. It was a joke until it hit home. The same virus that people were naive about was suddenly among us, affecting our own people and rearing its hideous head.
Nowadays, the coronavirus disease 2019, popularly known as COVID-19 and declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) in March 2020, is causing unfathomable havoc in the whole World. The Kingdom of eSwatini was not spared. Cases are skyrocketing daily and we have surpassed the thousand mark of positive cases, with death cases increasing as well. Since March 2020, when the lockdown was first put into effect, it seemed the right thing to do to combat the spread of the virus. But that also brought new challenges: people lost their jobs, businesses were closed, poverty levels took a dive for the worst, schools and churches were shut down, the economy was abruptly affected, etc. Continue reading “It was a joke until it hit home”
