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Paul Mugari Correspondent
Covid-19 has spread worldwide, causing anxiety and panic, resulting in lockdowns, quarantine, social distancing, the wearing of various personal protective equipment (PPE), and other preventative measures.

In Zimbabwe, a lockdown has been imposed since March 30 and various quarantine sites have been set up.

The war on Covid-19 has taken many fronts.

Moving forward, the focus is now on the easing of the lockdown in Zimbabwe and harnessing ideas to continue the fight against the pandemic.

Every Zimbabwean, all sectors of society, public and private entities, have huge responsibility to reduce the potential for transmission of Covid-19.

A Chinese Ideogram

There is a Chinese word which Western motivational speakers like to use.

It’s the Chinese word for “crisis” (weiji).

This word is said to be composed of two Chinese characters: one signifying “danger” and, the other signifies an “opportunity”. The idea is to say that whenever there is a crisis, there is an opportunity.

It is said that this word has become the Chinese symbol for crisis: a combination of the symbols for danger and opportunity.

There is a lesson there for us. It is also said that whenever there is a crisis in China, this symbol is displayed everywhere.

The message extracted here is simple; at a time of a crisis there is an opportunity. We have our own current crisis in Zimbabwe, and, therefore, can this apply to us? Are there any opportunities?

A Crisis

We have a current Covid-19 disease crisis. Using personal protective equipment (PPE), has become necessary and in some instances mandatory.

PPE includes gloves, aprons, face masks and other equipment necessary to protect oneself from contracting Covid-19.

PPE is in short supply around the world. These shortages are already in Zimbabwe.

The country is now looking at easing the current lockdown, but the fight against Covid-19 must continue. This time the fight requires PPE, particularly the face mask.

An opportunity

We must now start thinking about how we can solve the current crisis with home-grown solutions.

In an address to the business community, Vice President Constantino Chiwenga urged “the use of home-grown initiatives to solve our challenges”.

The Chinese ideogram mentioned above signifies danger and an opportunity.

Perhaps we would borrow this idea and put this sign along our highways and byways; to inspire our movers and shakers and provoke ourselves into thinking about solutions.

In times like these when our country is searching for a pathway to return to normality, it becomes necessary to provoke thought.

There is an opportunity to make our own face masks that can do the job.

In Hong Kong, Ovidiu Olea, a finance executive turned into a mask business mogul overnight. What he did can be done here.

He employed 20 staff and his business, like many others globally, was halted by the Covid-19 pandemic. Olea decided to buy face masks for his staff, but he could not find any in Hong Kong, or in China, Turkey or Europe.

When he called various sources to buy the masks, the answers ranged from “No” to “We only sell to accredited buyers” to “Come back next year”.

Olea did not give up.

According to his story in the Guardian Newspaper, Olea finally found the masks in South Africa at a firm called North Safety Products.

He then ordered in surplus of the 100 masks he initially wanted and sold the rest within a week.

He made a killing from a product next door to us.

Olea was quoted as saying that even if he had bought five million face masks from North Safety Products, he would have sold all of them.

Life after the lockdown in Zimbabwe is going to need continued precautions to fight Covid-19.

Like Olea in Hong Kong, Zimbabweans will all be faced with shortages of face masks.

Therefore, we need to start planning on how to mitigate the potential challenges.

Where will we get our masks? China is the major face mask producer in the world, contributing 50 percent of global production.

New supplies aren’t being made fast enough to keep up with demand, and stockpiles seem insufficient. China is struggling to keep up with the global demand for face masks.

A universal face mask wearing policy is going to put an enormous burden on the already struggling face mask supply.

This means that we need to start thinking of alternative sources of face masks for our population.

Elsewhere, face mask shortages have sparked creative solutions.

The fight against Covid-19 must continue and face masks are going to be very important.

Whilst the bigger and more resourced nations of the world are concentrating their efforts on research, vaccines and cures, we must ask ourselves what we can do.

Planning is key to our success.

The face masks come in different types, often classified according to their specific use. They range from sophisticated full-face respirators to simple disposable fluid-repellent medical masks.

A simple medical face mask covers the nose, mouth and chin and prevents droplets from reaching these parts of the wearer’s face and reduces the spread of infectious droplets.

Is it necessary to wear a face mask?

Arguments for and against the public wearing of face masks in the Covid-19 days are at play.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) states that only two groups of people should wear protective masks, those who are sick and showing symptoms, and those caring for people suspected to have coronavirus.

Some researchers writing in two papers have looked at this subject and came to differing conclusions.

Differences are good because they help us to look from all angles. One study found the use of face masks in public not effective in the fight against Covid-19.

However, this particular study had serious limitations. The study only had four participants and used a crude measure of viral spread, and therefore further research is necessary.

Another more rigorous study examined the effect of masks on seasonal coronaviruses (which cause many cases of the common cold) and found that face masks are helpful at reducing the spread of viruses. This study concluded that face masks are a necessity in the fight against Covid-19.

Perhaps one could argue that clinicians or other key workers who may be exposed to Covid-19 will need special high grade masks which we might need to acquire from specialist manufacturers.

Laura Saunders, however, reports that health care workers in the USA are considering using homemade face masks during the Covid-19 pandemic due to shortages.

What man does man can do?

Moving forward, various countries have had to make their own decisions about the use of face masks.

The bottom line, experts say, is that masks might help keep people with Covid-19 from unknowingly passing along the virus.

It’s always good to go with consensus with expert opinions.

Our Government has made it mandatory to wear face masks in public. This means a huge demand for face masks. The theory of demand and supply in economics says when demand is higher than supply, the price is higher.

Therefore, households should plan ahead on how we will protect our loved ones.

If the current world shortage of face mask is to persist, where will Zimbabwean households get their masks?

The Hong Kong businessman, Ovidiu Olea had a crisis at his place of work and an opportunity presented itself.

The solution for Olea was in South Africa. Zimbabwe is different from Hong Kong and therefore our response to the PPE shortage crisis must be different.

An African historian, A.S Mlambo, however, argues that a large part of Zimbabwe’s informal sector is made up of tailors and dress makers.

According to Mlambo, we have a huge number of tailors and dressmakers among our urbanites. This means we can make our own face masks, and at the very least we can make suitable homemade masks.

We could invest in our own. We can solve our own problem of face mask shortages.

If the necessary guidance on making a good face mask is made available to Zimbabwean tailors, and the necessary investments are made, this can be possible.

We could exploit this idea and interrogate it further. We have an advantage on this; we have a ready informal sector of tailors and dressmakers, unlike the USA.

Zimbabwe’s finance and business experts, industrialists and our resilient informal sector can get together and give it a go.

In the USA many people are making face masks at home using their own old clothing items, 100 percent cotton shirts and handkerchiefs.

There are several instructions and guidelines on various platforms, on television channels and online.

Zimbabwe could make such guidelines available to our households. We could create a time on our TV programmes and run short tutorials on how to make a homemade face mask. Simple instructions from experts could also be inserted in popular newspapers and publications.

Perhaps another idea could be the provision of Internet to more citizens. We could make Internet accessible to our households and small business.

They can have access to guidance on how to make face masks and other essential PPE online. There are, of course, many other benefits of Internet provision to our population. Gone are the days when Internet was a luxury. In these modern times Internet provision has become a necessity.