PEOPLE who will get out of their homes without face masks will from tomorrow be arrested as part of a raft of measures meant to ensure that the country conforms to Covid-19 lockdown Level Two guidelines announced by President Mnangagwa on Friday.

President Mnangagwa announced that the country will extend the national lockdown which was meant to end at midnight today by a further 14 days but downgraded it to Level Two, which entails among other guidelines that all people must wear face masks of any type, even home-made cloth ones, in all public spaces and when they are outside of their homes.

President Mnangagwa also announced the reopening of industry and commerce provided that the companies ensure mandatory screening and testing and operate from 8am to 3pm.

Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services Mr Nick Mangwana told Sunday News that wearing face masks in public was now law, after a Statutory Instrument was gazetted by the President yesterday.

On the monitoring of companies to ensure that they adhere to the 8am to 3pm operating hours, Mr Mangwana said the police would be in full force to ensure the adherence, revealing that companies will be heavily fined or lose their licences in the event they are caught on the wrong side of the law.

Mr Mangwana said while exemption letters were not policy, administratively authorities would require people to present evidence that they were part of the bracket of people that were required to go to work as per the provisions of the lockdown.

“The exemption letters were not part of law as such but what will prevail is that the police will ask people just to produce proof of where they are going. For example, when people are going to a funeral, the police may ask for the proof, which is for administrative purposes but the policy will then be the number of people meant to attend a funeral.

The police may ask people to prove that they work under the category of industry and commerce.

People can then produce these exemption letters, in some cases, this can take the form of company identification documents,” said Mr Mangwana.

He said what is important to highlight was that the informal sector remained closed hence those in the informal sector were not exempted from the lockdown.

Writing on his twitter handle, Mr Mangwana added that “restaurants and other eateries can sell food but people should not eat on the premises.

They have to take away the food.”-State media