Harare(New Ziana) – Government service in Zimbabwe went into partial lockdown on Friday as part of wider measures announced by the authorities to combat Covid-19.

The country has registered five confirmed Covid-19 cases, one of which has resulted in death.

In response, the government has announced a raft of precautionary measures to deal with the pandemic, including rotational work shifts for civil servants, which came into effect on Friday.

Under the partial lockdown, only a third of workers would turn up for work from now on, and rotate after every fortnight.

This is meant to de-congest work environments in government offices to limit possible transmission of Covid-19, a pandemic which killed more than 20 000 around the world, and stricken hundreds of thousands others.

Zimbabwe’s civil service has a workforce of more than 300 000, and most of these work in office set ups where human contact among themselves and the public is frequent.

According to the government plan, some of the ‘off-duty’ staff would be working from home.

But this excludes health workers, whose services are in critical demand because of the pandemic, the worst the world has ever experienced.

Private businesses have also followed the government lead and scaled down operations across the country as part of precautions against Covid-19.

Other measures taken by the country to combat Covid-19 include shutting down schools and borders to non-essential travellers.

The government has also declared the pandemic a national disaster to allow it to mobilise resources to combat it.

New Ziana