By A Correspondent- Harare City Council yesterday said it was overwhelmed by the soaring number of COVID-19 cases, which has turned it into the epicentre of the pandemic.

Acting mayor Stewart Mutizwa said the city’s health delivery system was overwhelmed as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to spiral out of control.

“As I speak, our great city has become the country’s coronavirus epicentre as figures continue to spiral beyond our control and that of an already overwhelmed health delivery system,” Mutizwa said.

“We had hoped that maybe a new year would bring in better expectations against the coronavirus and many of us had relaxed and were no longer practising any preventative measures.”

Harare has been recording over 700 cases daily in the past weeks, with many people appealing for oxygen and ventilators on social media as both private and public health

facilities are failing to cope with the surge.

The country went on a more strict lockdown starting on Tuesday as Information secretary Ndavaningi Mangwana warned at the weekend that Zimbabwe would soon be overwhelmed by the virus.

The country as of yesterday had recorded 17 194 cases and 418 deaths, with Tuesday alone recording 34 fatalities and 1 365 new infections. Of the Tuesday infections, 777 were from Harare which also recorded 10 deaths.-newsday