By JENERALI ULIMWENGU

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We are once again dying in impressive numbers from the pandemic, which has continued on its murderous path, compounded by widespread incomprehension of what the disease really comprises and what the measures to contain it mean to different people and their lives and livelihoods.

In Tanzania, for instance, there are signs that there is some understanding that the virus is around us, and that measures need to be taken to stay safe. Only four months ago, people behaved as if even alluding to the fact that the disease existed was tantamount to taking a stand against the president. John Pombe Magufuli was an ideological Covid denier. Now, the president says it herself.

All over the place now, people can be seen wearing masks at events hosting just scores of people -- though football stadia are still full of fans breathing into each other -- and in some cases, people have been turned away from events if they refuse to “cover up.”

We still have some work to do, however. It is evident that some people have not internalised the message, and old habits by virus deniers are dying very hard indeed. The shamanism that characterised John Pombe Magufuli’s last year on earth took its hold on our society, and its effects may take much longer than we think to dissipate.

There is very little that is strange here. Doing something out of being forced to do it, rather than by your own free will, is naturally unpleasant, and people will show resistance to anything like that. People will fight for freedom and oppose anything that restricts it.

It is the case in France, for instance, where the term “dictature sanitaire” has been coined, and in other countries where some protesters have been taking the face-covering masks as emblematic of the habitual restrictions government places on free speech. Indeed, come to think of it, how do you speak against anything when your mouth and nose are covered?

Stifled. That is the way some people may take the mask mandate, and apparently all the explanations of how the masks are life-saving devices have not been convincing. It has been even more difficult in places where top rulers have expressed opposition to any measures that restrict people’s freedom.

People’s freedom, did I say? In the case of Tanzania, Covid-19 hit the country when it was already in a four-year information and political lockdown, during which politics was banned, the media was seriously muzzled and people were being disappeared at the pleasure of our rulers in what had become a virtual Gulag. So, it was more than a little ironic that the same regime that locked down research and speech refused to close down other spheres of national engagement.

This state has not gone away yet. There are ominous signs that the desire to keep the people forcibly quietened – which has been a CCM hallmark, only exacerbated by Magufuli — still inhabits our rulers, if the recent midnight arrests of opposition leaders are anything to go by.

As we witnessed more than a year ago when the virus ambushed us, the crisis will, predictably, seriously inconvenience many of us, but at the same time offer opportunities to others who see ways of exploiting it to their advantage, and this could be commercial, cultural or political.

People are likely to resist, and sometimes that resistance is as ill-informed as the matter resisted may be incomprehensible. Eric Clapton, the musical icon, says he will not play his concerted to “segregated” audiences, meaning audiences denied to people who are not Covid-compliant, like those who do not carry the so-called “health-passes”. But what about those who may feel excluded because the concerts are held in circumstances that could be dangerous for their lives? Does that not qualify to be segregation?

We will hear more noises of such incomprehension. For instance, who wants to open the Tokyo Olympics – a potential super spreader -- at a time when 2,000+ Covid cases are being reported? There are indications a large number of the Japanese, especially Tokyo residents, do not want the Games in their country -- and for good cause. So what is the deal?

It has been suggested that it is the humongous dollar stashes associated with the Olympics that have trumped all other considerations to urge the Games to go on. The big money takes pride of place, when not even spectators can watch in the stadia. The cash figures put out to the media is stunning in its dizzying details, but this is money people and corporations will be making, and losing.

All the same, it is a bet worth making, and those who have ventured into the pandemic-touched Olympics may still make a pretty penny. But even if they lose huge amounts of money this time round, they can still come back after four years (maybe three, really) to recoup and go on to make a killing.

But how many lives have been exposed to peril so that these crazy sums can be raked in? Soon, we may know.

Jenerali Ulimwengu is now on YouTube via jeneralionline tv. E-mail: [email protected]