State Media

As the number of confirmed Covid-19 cases in Zimbabwe passed 1 700 yesterday, with more than half the patients infected within the country, the Government has decided that only civil servants providing essential services should now report for work while Chinhoyi University of Technology should close after a lecturer tested positive.

After a meeting of the national Covid-19 taskforce, Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Service Minister Senator Monica Mutsvangwa said the two decisions were a reaction to the rising number of local infections and deaths.

Latest figures from the Ministry of Health and Child Care show that 133 new infections were confirmed on Sunday, 116 of them local, and 102 new infections yesterday, 81 of them local infections within Zimbabwe including one death in Matabeleland North found after a routine post mortem test.

This brings the total number of confirmed cases to 1 713 with 26 deaths. But the growing trend is of more community infections rather than imported infections found in quarantine centres, the total number now confirmed to have been infected within Zimbabwe is 872, with those returning residents being found positive while in quarantine numbering 841. For the first time local infections outnumber those among returnees.

Bulawayo is still the worst hit province and city, with 490 of the local infections and 12 of the deaths, with Harare on 212 local infections and eight deaths.

So far 472 people are confirmed as recovered.

Speaking on the taskforce decisions, Minister Mutsvangwa said: “The taskforce directed that only those civil servants who were approved by the Public Service Commission to provide essential service should report for work, with the rest remaining in lockdown. The taskforce also received a presentation on the distribution of local positive cases across the country, which cannot be linked to an identifiable source. While these positive cases are dotted throughout the country, they are mostly concentrated in Bulawayo and Harare.”

The closure of Chinhoyi University of Technology followed standard policy.

“Following the recorded infection at the Chinhoyi University of Technology and in line with the guidelines for the re-opening of universities and colleges, the taskforce resolved that the said institution undertake all necessary and sensible steps to close,” said Minister Mutsvangwa.

Several private companies, finding an infection or cluster of infection in a business unit have followed the same policy, closing the unit temporarily while full disinfection and testing is done before there is any decision to reopen the unit.