Pandemics come and go but their devastation is beyond measure as so many lives are lost while economies suffer greatlyimmensely as well. Johannes Marisa Many people have heard about the 1918 Swine flu which killed about 50 million people, the Asian flu of 1957 and the Hong Kong flu of 1968. Both the Asian and Hong Kong flu killed nearly four million people and it is suspected that the numbers could be significantly higher than the ones given because of poor collation of statistics at that time. What was common in all the pandemics was that the second wave was deadlier than the first and those countries that rushed to lift restrictions suffered greatly in terms of both morbidity and mortality. United States of America lost about 116 000 citizens during the 1957-58 Asian flu attack. In 2019, COVID-19 originated from the Chinese province of Wuhan and as of today, at least 2,3 million people have already lost their lives due to the virus with the United States of America being the worst hit with at least 480 000 deaths. Brazil, India, United Kingdom, Mexico, Spain and Italy are some of the worst affected countries in the world. Morbidity and mortality of the COVID-19 seem to follow a pattern that does not look at the level of economic development. The human development index does seem to play a significant role in the control of COVID-19. While many people thought that countries with low gross domestic products, gross national income or human development index were going to be wiped, it turned out to be the opposite as those countries that are labelled very poor actually performed better than the developed ones. Zimbabwe has officially recorded over 34 000 cases with 1 353 deaths as of Tuesday while Zambia has recorded about 64 600 cases with about 1 037 deaths. This is good news for our continent that has long been vilified for neglecting health services. It should be understood that public health measures are critical in the control of pandemics and this has nothing much to do with having numerous ventilators. Public health is the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life and improving quality of life through organised efforts and informed choices by society, organisations, communities and individuals. Discipline and obedience play critical roles if the battle against COVID-19 is to be won. Public health measures that our government introduced include mask wearing, sanitisation, hand washing, quarantine of contacts, social distancing and national lockdowns. Many developed countries like France, Germany, Netherlands, Italy, UK and Spain witnessed many demonstrations against lockdowns with citizens expressing disgust over what they called an infringement on their human rights. Movement was limited while bars, museums and public places were closed. Demonstrating in countries like Germany in order to have the lockdown lifted yet more than 800 people are dying everyday, is not only absurd but also shows a high degree of medical ignorance on the part of the demonstrators. Medical discipline should be exercised a