HEALTH experts and businesses have welcomed President Mnangagwa’s decision to extend the level 4 National Lockdown by another two weeks following a spike in Covid-19 infections and deaths.
The extended lockdown will now end on February 15.
Acting President Constantino Chiwenga announced the review of the lockdown in a briefing in Harare yesterday.
Acting President Chiwenga said the extension has been necessitated by the need to save lives, adding that the President fully appreciates the difficulties which come with the lockdown extension.
He said livelihoods are being disrupted yet lives must be saved.
During the lockdown, people are supposed to be confined to their homes and may only leave to buy basic food necessities, fuel or gas at an outlet within a radius not exceeding five kilometres or the nearest establishment if those within the radius are closed.
Acting President Chiwenga said Government is conducting genomic sequencing to find out the types of viruses circulating in Zimbabwe as well as intensifying testing and patient care throughout the country.
“The war is not yet won. It is in light of this that His Excellency, the President of the Republic of Zimbabwe and Commander in Chief the Defence Forces, Cde Dr Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa has decided to extend the level four national lockdown by another two weeks to the 15th of February 2021,” he said.
“The President fully appreciates the difficulties which come with this extension. Livelihoods are being disrupted yet we must save lives and our nation. We must not lose the momentum which means we must mask up, sanitise, maintain social distance, stay at home and get tested and if positive self-isolate.”
Acting President Chiwenga said in the last week, 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 28 January 2021, cumulative cases reached two thirds 32 646 with deaths breaching the thousand mark to give us 1 160. The situation is clearly worrisome,” he said.
“Government continues to intensify testing and patient care throughout the provinces. We have a likelihood of new strains and variants circulating. These new strains are more transmissible and infectious.”
Acting President Chiwenga said the results of genomic sequencing to establish whether or not these strains are in the environment, will be published as soon as they are available.
“Government will soon be bringing in vaccines against Covid-19. A roll out plan and deployment strategy is being finalised. The nation will be kept informed on all these developments,” said Acting President Chiwenga.
He said the level four lockdown that came into force on January 5 2021 has stabilised the situation in the country with the number of infections having been decreasing substantially.
“Equally, our recovery rate has gone up from an all-time low of 54 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 home,” said Acting President Chiwenga.
“Any death is one death too many. Still, we need to stay the course by upping our vigilance.”
Health experts welcomed Government’s decision to extend the lockdown, saying it will go a long way in containing the spread of Covid-19.
Bulawayo health services director Dr Edwin Sibanda said the lockdown will help curb the spread of the virus. He said inter-city travel was one of the major drivers that was moving the virus.
“We feel the lockdown has assisted in reducing cases. Before this level four lockdown, people could easily move from Harare to Bulawayo and vice versa carrying the virus thus making it difficult to clearly define the hotspots. However, with a lockdown you can almost tell that this area has challenges and this one does not,” he said.
Dr Sibanda said they were, however still concerned with case management especially in hospitals due to lack of the requisite equipment.
“Generally, the lockdown has assisted although we would have loved authorities to extend business hours to at least 6pm because we get a lot of people congesting various business sites between 2PM and 3PM and in most cases social distancing is ignored,” he said.
“If people are given more time to shop for essentials, probably they would adhere to precautionary measures easily.”
Mpilo Central Hospital acting chief executive officer Professor Solwayo Ngwenya said the extension of the lockdown will assist in curbing the spread of the virus, particularly in the wake of new variants.
Professor Solwayo Ngwenya
“We welcome the extension because we want to assess the situation in terms of what was happening. It would be very dangerous to lift the lockdown now because cases had started to increase,” he said.
Prof Ngwenya warned people flouting lockdown regulations, saying the duration of the lockdown will depend on community behaviour.
“If we all follow the rules and regulations, infections will decline and consequently the lockdown will be lifted,” he said.
Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce (ZNCC) national deputy president, Mr Golden Muhoni urged Government to relax the business operating hours.
“As a way of trying to save the economy and the livelihoods of citizens, we would have wished a bit of some flexibility in terms of working hours.
“We would then conscientise on the need to observe the health regulations such as masking up, sanitising and social distancing,” he said.
Mr Muhoni said Government should put in place mechanisms to address the plight of those in the informal sector including firms categorised under non-essential services.
“There must be a plan of how these people are going to keep their businesses with employees continuing to get their salaries.
“The extension has been done but our wish is to see business working hours extended to at least 5pm,” he said.
Confederation of Zimbabwe Retailers (CZR) president, Mr Denford Mutashu said they welcomed the lockdown extension saying it has helped contain Covid-19.
“We all have to work together to fight and contain the ravaging Covid-19 pandemic. The virus is a global pandemic that all nations have made a priority to fight,” he said.
Mr Mutashu said what is obtaining now is a war situation that demands extraordinary measures.
“We therefore welcome the move by Government to extend the lockdown. We all need to ensure production of basic goods remain unhindered and ensure prices also remain stable for the benefit of all citizens,” he said. ——chroncie.c.zw
