"Situation in Selected Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining (ASM) Communities",  21-28 March 2020

[With] five officially confirmed COVID-19 cases, one casualty and counting, ZELA conducted a quick survey of the state of play in artisanal and small-scale mining communities. The idea was to assess how women miners, artisanal and small-scale miners and diggers, villagers and mining affected communities are coping and responding to the global threat, anxiety, fear and deaths brought about by COVID-19. Around the world, COVID-19 is gravely disrupting whole mining supply chains, economies, the social fabric, stretching service delivery capacities, and in the process raising profound state, private sector and political accountability questions.

Most miners do not have Personal Protective Equipment such as face masks, gloves and hand sanitizers to protect themselves from contracting the virus. [A] few people in Gwanda have started to take some preventive measures like wearing face masks, gloves and washing hands..., [but in] remote mining areas...there is little or no knowledge of the causes, transmission, symptoms and effects of COVID-19. 

Some mine owners in Gwanda, Bubi and Shurugwi are still operating after providing workers mutton cloths to cover their faces as they cannot find masks which have run out of stock. In Bubi, a few mine owners are providing workers with gloves, methylated spirit, dish washer for cleaning hands and encouraging them to minimize movements and to avoid alcohol and cigarette sharing. A few shops and buses in Gwanda are providing hand sanitizers at the door, while for some commuter omnibuses the behaviour of overloading people continues as usual