The country is under a 30-day lockdown but residents still
defy regulations and gather for funerals, oblivious of the risk they put on
their lives.
Under new lockdown measures, church services have been
banned, funeral gatherings have been limited to 30 people, bars and bottle
stores shut down, restaurants closed while intercity and interprovincial
movement has been limited to those classified as essential service providers.
Members of the public are expected to shop within a 5
kilometre radius from their homes while essential services employees are
allowed to pass through checkpoints after producing exemption letters.
Despite the national ban, members of the public still
continue to gather for a number of reasons.Police in Bulawayo have arrested
more than 600 people for defying lockdown conditions since the beginning of the
year.
The rapid response teams in Bulawayo which are expected to
react promptly to suspected cases, assess and assist in stabilising patient,
have been struggling to keep up with mounting pressure.
The teams also conduct contact tracing and make follow up
visits to affected residents. Ideally, Bulawayo should have at least 10 teams
but only three have been created due to resource constraints.
The city has 661 active Covid-19 cases and recorded one
death on Monday bringing the total number of deaths to 151 since the outbreak
of the global pandemic.
To date 3 550 Covid-19 cases have been recorded in the
province and experts say half of new infections emanate from people with no
symptoms. As of 18 January, Zimbabwe has now recorded 27 892 cases, 17 372
recoveries and 773 deaths.
Bulawayo director of health services Dr Edwin Sibanda said
council was struggling to meet demand in the community and called for well
wishers to help boost rapid response teams.
He said his office had written to the Ministry of Health
and Child Care through the provincial medical director, Dr Welcome Mlilo.
Dr Sibanda said council needed additional nurses,
environmental health officers, lab technicians, vehicles and fuel.
He said the public should note the recently ended
industrial action had affected the operations of the teams although the major
challenge has always been resources.
“Most of our infections and possible contacts are emanating
from gatherings which we know are currently banned but residents still meet in
the name of comforting the bereaved,” he said. “Let us avoid physical gathering
as these are spreading Covid in the city.”
He said in a case where residents cannot access the rapid
response teams, they should self-isolate while waiting for help so they do not
spread Covid-19 in case they are infected.
“In an ideal setup, a rapid response team should have three
people, a nurse, someone qualified to do a test, a lab technician and an
environmental health officer. However, due to resource challenges, we have
three teams instead of 10 which I think will not be able to cover the whole
city,” said Dr Sibanda.
“We have written to the Ministry updating them of our
resource challenges so that our teams are able to attend to residents at the
shortest possible time. We need vehicles and fuel as well to be able to cope
with the increasing calls for help.”
He said there was a shortage of staffers and council was
forced to redeploy its nurses from clinics to join the rapid response teams.
Chronicle
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