Chronicle Editor
Munyaradzi Musiiwa, Sunday News Reporter
PRESIDENT Mnangagwa has extended the Level 4 lockdown measures by a further two weeks to 15 February 2021.
This was announced on Friday by Acting President and Minister of Health and Child Care General (Retired) Dr Constantino Chiwenga.
In a statement, Dr Chiwenga said the extension was necessitated by the surging Covid-19 cases and increasing deaths.
“Fellow Zimbabweans, we continue to see a high number of Covid-19 cases and, sadly, deaths. In the last week our new cases have been averaging about 300 per day, with deaths averaging 20 per day. Cumulative cases as at 1st January, 2021 were 14 084 and deaths were 369. As at January 28, 2021 cumulative cases reached 32 646 with deaths breaching the thousand mark to give us 1 160. The situation is clearly worrisome. Government continues to intensify testing and patient care throughout the provinces.
“It is in light of this that His Excellency the President of the Republic of Zimbabwe and Commander-In- Chief of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces, Cde Dr ED Mnangagwa, has decided to extend the Level 4 national lockdown by another two weeks to the 15th of February 2021.
The President fully appreciates the difficulties which come with this extension. Livelihoods are being disrupted yet we must save lives and our nation,” he said.
Dr Chiwenga said there was a likelihood of the of the new strains and variants in the country.
He said Government will soon be bringing in vaccines against Covid-19 and a roll out plan and deployment strategy is being finalized.
“We have a likelihood of new strains and variants circulating. These strains are more transmissible and infectious. We are doing genomic sequencing to see if these strains are in our environment. Results will be published as soon as we have them. Government will soon be bringing in vaccines against Covid-19. A roll out plan and deployment strategy is being finalized. The nation will be kept informed on all these developments. The level 4 National Lockdown that came into force on the 5th of January 2021 has stabilized our situation. In relative terms and since the lockdown, the number of infections have been decreasing substantially. Equally, our recovery rate has gone up from an all-time low of fifty-four percent to the current one which is 75 percent. Even though the numbers we are losing to the pandemic are falling, we bemoan the fact that Zimbabweans are dying at all. Any death is one death too many. Still, we need to stay the course by upping our vigilance. The war is not yet won,” he said.
Bongani Ndlovu