By A Correspondent- In a refreshingly candid admission, Vice President Kembo Mohadi says the government should do more to combat the spread of the coronavirus pandemic in the country.

Speaking to the Daily News On Sunday – after a meeting with doctors in Harare on Friday – the usually introverted Mohadi said bluntly that he was not happy with what the country had done to prepare for the lethal disease.

He also conceded that the number of people who have so far been tested for the virus in the country, at less than 500, did not reflect well on Zimbabwe’s efforts to combat the global pandemic.

This comes as Zimbabwe has registered its third death from coronavirus, from the 13 people who have so far tested positive for the deadly disease — a development that has made the country’s Covid-19 mortality rate among the highest in the world, at 27 percent.

It also comes as health experts have also raised the red flag over Zimbabwe’s preparations for Covid-19, citing a glaring lack of testing kits, intensive care units, ventilators and personal protective equipment (PPE), among other critical things.

“Tests should be done expeditiously and they (doctors) said we should also move out of Harare and go to other areas. Even before the lockdown, we did not know who had been where and who they had visited and met. We need to do more testing using facilities that are there. I am equally not happy myself that we have only tested over 400 people. We need to have tested more,” Mohadi said.

“The same with Bulawayo, we have an international airport there. So, there is a possibility that we might be having people that might have been somewhere who might have sneaked into the country without us knowing. We need to do the necessary sampling,” the VP added.

Mohadi also disclosed that the government would soon dispatch teams to hunt for possible cases at busy ports of entry such as Victoria Falls and Beitbridge.