‘Do not panic over Covid-19 cases’

Rutendo Nyeve, Sunday News Reporter

ZIMBABWEANS have been urged not to panic but adhere to set protocols and measures put in place to combat the spread of Covid-19.

According to statistics from the Ministry of Health and Child Care, 151 new cases were recorded as of Thursday with zero deaths. The daily situational report revealed that the seven-day rolling average for new cases fell to 104 from 108 on the previous day.

In an interview, National Covid-19 response Coordinator Dr Agnes Mahomva said there was no need for citizens particularly parents with children in schools to panic as government has resumed vaccination programmes.

“There is no need to panic. We have resumed vaccination at schools. We had stopped when schools closed and we continue to advocate for vaccination of everybody. The vaccinations are available for everybody at clinics. Our vaccination coverage went up, we are now almost 59 percent which is a healthy number, but we want to go even higher. We have noticed that those who are getting severely affected by Covid-19 are less and those who are dying from Covid-19 are even fewer,” said Dr Mahomva.

According to the latest report by the Ministry of Health and Child Care, 1 223 people received the first dose of the vaccine on Thursday bringing the cumulative figure for first dose to 6 601 701.

On the same day, 527 people received their second dose bringing the cumulative figure for second dose to 4 963 576, while 1 010 received their third dose bringing the cumulative figure to 1 305 646.

While affirming that the vaccination programme has helped to mitigate and curb the global pandemic, Dr Mahomva emphasised on the need to maintain set down protocols and safety measures.

“We feel very strongly that our vaccination programme is working. We also know that the other measures that we put in place have also helped. People need to continue social distancing. We encourage people to continue social distancing, that is the new normal. We remain vigilant and monitor the situation on a day-to-day basis. No one can tell what is going to happen tomorrow but we do not think the numbers will increase, but if we see them increasing then we will discuss on tightening measures.

“There is absolutely no reason to panic as every Zimbabwean knows what to do unlike when we started experiencing Covid-19. If we adhere to all protocols put in place by the World Health Organisation, there will be no need to panic,” said Dr Mahomva.
As of 1 February 2023, there were 39 hospitalised cases with seven new admissions. Four were asymptomatic, 26 mild to moderate, four severe and five in Intensive care units across the country.

Thirty-one of the 39 hospitalised people were vaccinated and eight were not vaccinated. As of 1 February, 130 new recoveries were recorded translating to a national recovery rate of 97 percent while active cases rose to 1 281. As of Thursday, Zimbabwe has recorded combined figures since the start of the pandemic of 262 860 cases, 255 921 recoveries and 5 658 deaths. – @nyeve14