To those providing essential services (doctors, nurses, pharmacists and other health workers, soldiers, police officers, shop personnel, guards, cleaners and all those whose service is essential that they cannot stay home and thus serving as our first line of defence during this difficult time of novel coronavirus (Covid-19), I am writing to salute you for a great job you are doing. Yours is a call to national service, a duty to take on this enemy (Covid-19) and battle it to protect Namibians and indeed the entire human race.
We have no fear of the Covid-19 spreading further or getting out of control because we have capable men and women on the frontline.
We are mindful of the great sacrifices you make every day, especially the health and medical personnel, who even go to the extent of quarantining themselves from their families in separate bedrooms and separate bathrooms as they try by all means to protect their loved ones as well.
Yours is a demonstration of professional acumen, personal courage, sacrifices and ethics in our fight against the pandemic, (in some cases with no protective gears).
You are courageous men and women in the Land of the Brave.
You are serving not only the people of Namibia but humanity. Yours is a dedication and commitment to safeguarding the people, some of whom have no appreciation of your efforts.
The service you are rendering is a national service and your efforts, especially during this dreadful period in the history of humankind, are national efforts.
Your dedication gives us hope every day that there would be no Covid-19 in Namibia in the coming weeks and months.
Your dedication gives us hope every day that all persons who tested positive of Covid-19 will recover fully and those hospitalised will eventually be discharged from hospitals. Your dedication gives us hope every day that the current lockdown will be lifted timely and that life will return to normal again.
Your dedication gives us hope every day that our economy will get back to normal again, that those men and women who make a living from selling kapana, vegetables etc on the roadside, open markets and elsewhere throughout our towns will be able to make a living again, that those men and women who hustle in so many ways to put bread on the table for their families will be able to hustle freely once again.
Your dedication gives us hope every day that the Namibian child will once again be able to go back to school, that the tertiary students will be able to once again return to universities and colleges to complete their academic year without further interruptions. Indeed, your courage and dedication give us hope every day that our churches and other places of worship will be able to re-open and operate normally again, that our society will return to normalcy again.
Clearly, our hope, just as is the case with all nations worldwide, is in the men and women who are rendering the essential services as we battle this pandemic.
Therefore, to you all on the frontline, walk and work with your head up at all times.
Walk and work with pride and love for your country and people, walk and work with peace in your hearts, knowing that the rest of the nation holds you in the highest esteem and appreciates your patriotic duties and personal courage.
As a nation, therefore, let’s ensure that our men and women serving on the frontline are equipped with necessary protective gears and other relevant equipment needed to protect them from Covid-19 while on duty serving and protecting us.
I would also like to call upon our spiritual leaders and every Namibian to keep our men and women on the frontline in prayers. Their duties are part of large national efforts to defeat Covid-19 and return our national life to normal again.
Thank you a million times; thank you indeed.
Salute!