Zimbabwe’s Victoria Falls usually teems with tourists who come to marvel at the roaring Zambezi River as it tumbles down more than 108 metres to the gorge below, sending up a mist that is visible from miles away.

“The smoke that thunders” — the English translation of what the waterfall is called in the Sotho language — is still mighty, but the Covid-19 pandemic has reduced visitors to a trickle. Ordinarily, Victoria Falls attracts 350,000 tourists a year, but their numbers have dropped to almost none as a result of travel restrictions.

To promote Victoria Falls as a safe destination, President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s government has made vaccines available to all 35,000 residents of the town that shares a name with the waterfall. An estimated 60 per cent of the people there have been vaccinated with either the Sinopharm or Sinovac vaccines, both from China.

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