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.
Mutizwa said residents should act responsibly in times like
these to curb the spread of the deadly disease.
Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights (ZADHR)
secretary-general Norman Matara said Harare’s public hospitals had only 30 ICU
beds.
“The problem is, very few institutions are admitting
COVID-19 patients because bed capacity is very low in public hospitals,” Matara
told Al Jazeera news agency.
“This means that patients requiring these services will die
at home. The few private facilities admitting patients are charging an arm and
a leg,” he said, adding that there was need to increase the bed capacity of
public hospitals to cope with rising demand.
“When the Health minister (Vice-President) Constantino
Chiwenga, made his announcement, I think he dwelt too much on the preventive
side of things and did not focus on the curative side, the vaccine logistics,
how they are going to provide PPE (personal protective eqipment) for frontline
workers. A lockdown will slow down the infections after 30 days, but that is
not the solution,” Matara said.
In a statement, ZADHR said the growing figures of health
personnel being infected with COVID-19 in the course of their duties was
worrying.
“Our conservative estimates point towards 1 000 health
workers being infected with COVID-19,” the doctors said while threatening court
action to force the government to avail PPE.
The acting Harare mayor also warned vendors and other informal traders against defying lockdown regulations saying: “The city would want to warn vendors and other small-to-medium enterprises that have defied the government directive and continue to operate that the long arm of the law will catch up with them and they should stop forthwith all their operations.”
“Transport operators continue plying certain routes in the city, mainly those that do not pass through the central business district. These routes include Dzivarasekwa-Machipisa, Westgate-Warren Park, Machipisa-Chitungwiza and other local routes. I would like to urge transport operators to stop and consider the health of fellow residents ahead of monetary gains.”
“Our frontline staff is already overwhelmed and let us not
overburden them purposely. Let us put the little resources to good use by using
them on deserving patients. We do not want to see unlicensed commuter omnibus
operators on our roads, evading law enforcement agents yet spreading diseases,”
the acting mayor said.
Mutizwa said council was taking the lockdown as an
opportunity to clean the city centre that had seen dirt piling in recent
months.
Meanwhile, government yesterday said it had availed $7
billion to motivate and employ more health workers.
Addressing journalists in Harare last night, Health deputy
minister John Mangwiro said the money would also be used to procure test kits,
PPE, sundries and sanitisers, as well as improve health infrastructure.
“Government has cumulatively availed S7 billion to motivate
and employ more health workers, procure test kits, PPE sundries and sanitisers
and improve infrastructure,” Mangwiro said.
“The government is rolling out rapid antigen testing for
symptomatic patients and this will go a long way in decongesting our emergency
rooms and improving the triaging process.”
“Government has procured 156 000 kits for testing and these
are being distributed throughout the country.”
Mangwiro said the number of COVID-19 deaths from community
transmission was worrying, hence the need for people to respect the lockdown
currently in place to control the spread of the virus. Newsday
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