AUTHORITIES are concerned about high levels of complacency being displayed by the generality of Zimbabweans since the relaxation of Covid-19 regulations and could reintroduce tighter restrictions and increase police checkpoints to forestall a third wave of infections.
On March 1, President Mnangagwa announced a comprehensive
easing of lockdown measures leading to the reopening of businesses, removal of
exemption letters, reduction of police deployments and easing of curfew
regulations, among other interventions following a marked drop in Covid-19
deaths and infections.
However, since the relaxation of the measures, complacency
has been creeping in and members of the public are throwing caution to the wind
by failing to abide to social distancing and other preventive measures, raising
fears that the country could experience a spike in infections, notwithstanding
the national vaccination programme currently underway.
Officials last week told The Sunday Mail that the exemption
letter requirement could be reinstated should the chaos obtaining in most urban
areas persist.
However, the Government is in the meantime exhausting other
avenues such as increasing the pace of vaccination and arresting offenders
before reinstating stricter measures.
To achieve this, the Government has beefed up its
vaccination teams while deploying personnel to educate people about the
benefits of immunisation to communities.
Chief Co-ordinator of the national response to the Covid-19
pandemic in the Office of the President and Cabinet, Dr Agnes Mahomva, told The
Sunday Mail that an avenue had been opened for the private sector to acquire
doses through the Government to speed up the inoculation process.
Currently, over 36 000 people have been vaccinated and more
are set to receive the jab in the second phase of the programme.
“As Government, we are always concerned when people get
complacent because that is what led us to the second wave,” Dr Mahomva said.
“But as our main defence line, now that we have the
vaccine, we are speeding up the programme to ensure that we immunise our target
number as a way of minimising further infections.
“We are beefing up our teams from the national level to
provincial so that more and more people get vaccinated and are educated about
the safety of the vaccine.
“As a way of speeding up the process, we have also allowed
the private sector to import the vaccine through the Government.”
She encouraged communities to abide by safety measures to
ensure that the fight against Covid-19 is inclusive.
To this end, the Government has deployed teams to educate
communities about the benefits of being vaccinated.
On Friday, Mpilo Central Hospital Acting chief executive
officer, Professor Solwayo Ngwenya, issued an ominous warning to the nation
after noting an increase in the positivity rate since the easing of the
lockdown.
“Coronavirus: Back to the same pattern! Bulawayo starts
with a high positivity rate of 19,5 percent. Unfortunately, the third wave with
the variants will be unforgiving. This time things will erupt suddenly, and
catastrophically. Stay at home if you can, it could save your life,” he wrote
on his Twitter handle.
National police spokesperson Assistant Commissioner Paul
Nyathi said if need be, the police would increase patrols and checkpoints to
fish out irresponsible members of the public.
“We are not going back on arresting those who break the
rules, especially those who are not wearing masks and not practising social
distancing,” he said.
“We had restricted our patrols and checkpoints to curfew
hours, but if things remain like this, yes there is a possibility that we could
increase our checkpoints again.
“People need to be responsible, I think that should be a
personal choice for the sake of one’s own health.”
Meanwhile, medical aid societies through their
representative body, Association of Healthcare Funders of Zimbabwe (AFHoZ), are
at an advanced stage in the process of acquiring vaccines after receiving the
green light from the Government.
In a circular dated March 11, 2021, First Mutual Health
managing director Stanford Sisya told members that the health insurer is
actively participating in the vaccine procurement initiative led by the AFHoZ.
“Engagements with the Ministry of Health and Child Care as
well as the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development, led by AHFoZ, have
determined that the two ministries are amenable to the proposal for AHFoZ
members to procure vaccines for their members” he said.
“AHFoZ is currently collating the information from its
member companies to enable vaccine orders to be placed through the Ministry of
Finance and Economic Development who are the procuring authority.
“In addition, the Medicines Control Authority of Zimbabwe
has issued an emergency use authorisation for the following 4 vaccines:
Sinopharm, Sinovac (China), Covaxin (India) and Sputnik-V (Russia), and the
Government will guide the roll out plan for the vaccination programme.”
As at March 12, 2021, Zimbabwe had 36 423 confirmed cases,
including 33 996 recoveries and 1 496 deaths. To date, a total of 36 283
frontline workers have been vaccinated. Sunday Mail
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