| In Britain and other western economies, stockpiling during the pandemic has been largely confined to building up supplies of toilet paper, hand sanitizer and tinned items. It has also been entirely unnecessary. However, in Zimbabwe, a country with one of the world's most run-down health systems, stockpiling is altogether a more serious and potentially life-saving activity. Rather than hoarding grocery staples, residents in the Southern African nation (or at least the small minority with access to substantial reserves of U.S. dollars), are importing oxygen concentrators, pulse oximeters, ionic colloidal silver and nebulizers in the event they catch Covid-19. One close acquaintance in Harare, the capital, recounts paying about $1,600 to bring in a concentrator that produces an oxygen-enriched gas. He says the company helping him to import the machine is bringing in a further 108 concentrators for individuals in just this one shipment alone.  A grave is prepared for a Covid-19 victim in Harare, Zimbabwe, where there has been little testing and deaths have surged. Photographer: Tafadzwa Ufumeli/Getty Images "It is a double-edged sword this though," he says in a text message. "If one parent gets Covid then fine they can use the oxygen, but what happens if the other also gets it, then who do we give it to?" These grim considerations are commonplace in a country where two decades of economic stagnation have decimated the health system and left the country with few resources to face the outbreak. Against a backdrop of hundreds of thousands of deaths in the U.S. and Europe, Africa's pandemic has been an afterthought. No more so than in Zimbabwe, where nurses at a major public hospital in the capital are striking over the lack of PPE, hospital beds are in short supply and even private hospitals, for those wealthy enough to afford them, are under strain. Desperate friends and relatives of sick patients are taking to social media to hunt for supplies of oxygen and other equipment while funeral homes can't keep up with the demand for burials. Zimbabwe has yet to receive any vaccines under Covax, the international initiative for Covid-19 vaccines led by the World Health Organization. With no vaccine orders placed by the government directly, the pain and death from the pandemic are becoming fearsome.—Deirdre Hipwell | 
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