On January 20, Zimbabweans were shocked to hear the news of the death of Foreign Affairs minister Sibusiso Moyo, the latest government official to succumb to COVID-19. The 61-year-old, who rose to fame after appearing on state television on November 15, 2017, to announce the military coup that overthrew longtime President Robert Mugabe, died at a private hospital in the capital, Harare, days after testing positive for coronavirus. Moyo was the third Cabinet minister to have died of COVID-19 in recent weeks amid a major surge in the pandemic (Transport minister Joel Biggie Matiza and Manicaland Provincial Affairs and Devolution minister Ellen Gwaradzimba were the other two) and the fourth in total (Agriculture minister Perrance Shiri passed away in July last year). In pre-pandemic times, such powerful figures would have typically been ferried outside Zimbabwe to seek medical care in countries such as South Africa or China. But with tougher restrictions currently curbing international travel, top officials are now coming face to face with the reality of a crippled healthcare system that they would normally shun for paid treatments abroad. “The political elites in Zimbabwe have been forced to confront the local healthcare that has collapsed over a number of years,” said analyst Vivid Gwede. Throughout his decades-long rule, Mugabe routinely sought healthcare abroad, mainly in Singapore where he also died in 2019 aged 95. He was not the only one. In 2017, current President and then-Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa was airlifted to South Africa following suspected food poisoning at one of the rallies of the governing Zanu PF. In July 2019, presidential spokesperson George Charamba confirmed that Vice-President Constantino Chiwenga had been flown to China for treatment. Chiwenga, who in August was also named Zimbabwe’s health minister, said earlier this year that the government was planning to ban medical trips abroad by Zimbabweans, saying the overseas referrals were draining the country’s coffers. “Ministers are only about 20, but those who have been going out it’s you, you, me, altogether. That [medical] export bill was too high and that is what we want to curtail,” Chiwenga said in September. ‘Equaliser’ As of yesterday morning, Zimbabwe had confirmed 33 388 coronavirus cases, with 1 217 related deaths — up from 14 084 and 369, respectively, on January 1. Other Zimbabwean bigwigs who succumbed to COVID-19 earlier this month include former Finance deputy minister in the 1980s, Moton Malianga, former Primary and Secondary Education minister Aeneas Chigwedere and ex-Zimbabwe Prisons and Correctional Service Commissioner-General Paradzai Zimondi. “What COVID-19 has shown is that it is an ‘equaliser’. It proved to us that we need solidarity as human beings, not wealth accumulation and greed,” said Maxwell Saungweme, a political analyst in Harare, underscoring that COVID-19 is a non-selective disease affecting both the rich and the poor. “The government now is more in grasp of realities the poor citizens face as a result of
