Zim extends national lockdown by two weeks

Harare (New Ziana) –The Zimbabwe government on Friday extended the level Four national lockdown by an additional two weeks, to cement gains made in the initial 30 day restriction period which came into force on January 5 this year.

Vice President General Constantino Chiwenga (Rtd), who is also the Health and Child Care Minister announced the extension.

He said the current level Four lockdown had stabilised the situation in the country.

“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 54 percent to the current one which is 75 percent,” he said.

“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.

“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 comrade Dr Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa has decided to extend the level Four 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. 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.”

VP Chiwenga said the government continued to intensify testing and patient care throughout the country.

“We have a likelihood of a new strain 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,” he said.

“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.”

New Ziana