5, April 2020
Angolans defy coronavirus lockdown saying ‘Better die of this disease than starve’ 0
It is a cry from the heart and the stomach that is reverberating across African towns and cities reeling under lockdowns and curfews to contain the spread of the coronavirus.
“How can anyone stay home without anything to eat?” asked Garcia Landu, a motorcycle taxi driver in the bustling Angolan seaside capital of Luanda.
He ventured out to try and earn a living, defying the government-ordered anti-coronavirus restrictions.
“We have responsibilities towards our families. We have to go out and get food,” said Landu, sporting a helmet in the national red-and-black colours.
It’s “better to die of this disease or a gunshot than to starve to death,” he said. “To starve to death, I will never, ever accept that. I can’t”.
Days after the government declared a state of emergency and imposed restrictions on March 26, crowds continue to mass at markets, in front of shops or by water points in Luanda.
Under the restrictions, President Joao Lourenco has banned travel, meetings and public activities as the country reported 10 infections with two deaths.
“The situation demands… sacrifices from all citizens, whose rights and professional and social life will have to be restricted,” Lourenco said in a televised speech last week.
– ‘I have nothing at home’ –
But not to the point of depriving people of water, retorted Quechinha Paulina, a widow who has no running water in the heavily-populated Cazenga municipal district in the capital of the oil-rich country.
So she is forced to buy from private water bowsers. She placed an order and still awaits delivery.
“It’s been two weeks and it hasn’t come,” she said. “So today I got up at 3am to buy (elsewhere).
“I have nothing at home. I have children,” she said, complaining that nearly a week into the new month, she hasn’t received her social grant payment yet.
Despite the lockdown, many view earning money, finding food and fetching water as legitimate reasons to leave home.
Announcing a slew of measures to help keep people at home, the government also promised to distribute water in disadvantaged neighbourhoods.
Telephone operators have joined in by offering free call minutes to avoid queues of people buying airtime recharge vouchers at their outlets.
But all that has failed to empty the streets of Luanda.
On the eve of the state of emergency, the police chief, Paulo de Almeida, vowed to hammer home the message about the seriousness of the virus.
“But we will not tolerate disobedience,” he warned. “It’s a question of everyone’s health.”
–‘People are stubborn’ –
On Friday, Interior Minister Eugenio Laborinho reported that 1,209 people had been detained in just days, more than 1,000 of them for having entered Angola after the borders were shut on March 27, and 189 for violating the state of emergency.
“The police are not on the ground to please (people) or to distribute chocolates,” Laborinho told journalists. “People are stubborn anyway, they know they have to stay home”.
The lockdown order has largely gone unnoticed in the daily grind and hustle on the capital’s streets.
“The disease is dangerous, we see that. Everyone sees that, everyone knows,” said Domingos Joao, a taxi driver.
“But (by) staying at home, we won’t achieve anything. That is why we are in the streets, working with (and obeying) the rules, as you see.
“Before passengers climb in, they are disinfected first,” he said showing a bottle of hand sanitiser.
Out doing his shopping, teacher Geraldo Dala, is fearful that “if COVID-19 starts spreading here, that will be it! Thousands will be infected”.
But he justified his and others being out on the streets because “people have to go out for bread or a kilo of rice”.
“The state of emergency will not be respected as long as people depend on street hawking to feed their families,” said veteran journalist Rafael Marques.
Marques, who is usually critical of the government, agrees the emergency steps “were taken for the good of the people”.
Source: AFP
5, April 2020
Queen Elizabeth will ask Britain to show resolve against coronavirus in rare address 0
Queen Elizabeth will call on Britons to show the same resolve as their forebears and take on the challenge and disruption caused by the coronavirus outbreak with good-humoured resolve when she makes an extremely rare address to rally the nation on Sunday.
In what will only be her fifth special televised message to the country during her 68 years on the throne, the queen will also thank healthcare workers on the front line and recognise the pain already suffered by some families.
“I hope in the years to come everyone will be able to take pride in how they responded to this challenge. And those who come after us will say that the Britons of this generation were as strong as any,” the 93-year-old monarch will say, according to extracts released by Buckingham Palace.
“That the attributes of self-discipline, of quiet good-humoured resolve and of fellow-feeling still characterise this country.”
On Saturday, the government said the death toll of those who had tested positive for the virus rose by 708 in 24 hours to 4,313, with a 5-year-old among the dead, along with at least 40 who had no known previous health conditions.
Health officials have cautioned that high fatalities were expected for at least another week or two even if people complied with strict isolation measures.
Like many countries in Europe, Britain is in a state of virtual lockdown, with pubs, restaurants and nearly all shops closed, and social gatherings banned.
Britons have been told to stay at home unless it is absolutely essential to venture out to try to stop the spread of the epidemic. Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who is still in self-isolation, and a number of senior ministers have been among those who have tested positive for the virus.
‘As strong as any’
“I am speaking to you at what I know is an increasingly challenging time,” Elizabeth will say in what has been framed as a deeply personal message.
“A time of disruption in the life of our country: a disruption that has brought grief to some, financial difficulties to many, and enormous changes to the daily lives of us all.”
Sunday’s address, which will be aired at 1900 GMT, was recorded at Windsor Castle where the monarch is staying with her husband Prince Philip, 98.
In order to ensure any risk to the queen herself was mitigated, it was filmed in a big room to ensure a safe distance between her and the cameraman, who was wearing personal protective equipment and was the only other person present.
Earlier this week, Elizabeth’s son and heir Prince Charles, 71, came out of self-isolation himself after seven days following a positive test.
The queen usually only broadcasts to the nation with her annual televised Christmas Day message and this special address will be only the fifth she has made.
The last was in 2012 following celebrations to mark her 60th year as queen. That came a decade after the preceding broadcast which followed the death of her mother, the Queen Mother, in 2002 when she thanked Britons for their messages of condolence.
She also gave an address at the start of the Gulf War in 1991, and most famously, delivered a sombre live broadcast after the death of her daughter-in-law Princess Diana in a Paris car crash in 1997 amid a national outpouring of grief and criticism of the royal family’s response.
(REUTERS)