January 29th local time, Zimbabwean Vice President and Minister of Health and Child Welfare, acting as the Head of State of Zimbabwe, Chivenga, delivered a speech through Zimbabwe National Television, announcing the decision made by President Mnangaguwa, who is on a routine leave.
Mnangaguwa’s decision is as follows: to extend the level 4 blockade currently in place throughout Zimbabwe for another two weeks until February 15 to cope with the still serious COVID-19 situation in the country.
Chivinga pointed out that the current COVID-19 situation in Zimbabwe is worrying.
Although the epidemic situation in Zimbabwe has stabilized since the entry into force of the fourth-level blockade on January 5 this year, people still need to be vigilant and the anti-epidemic work is not over, given the continuous death.
Chiwenga said that in response to the coronavirus epidemic, the Zimbabwean government continues to strengthen its testing capacity and patient treatment levels nationwide.
He said that there may have been COVID-19 variant strains in Zimbabwe, which are more likely to spread and be infected. The government is sequencing the genome to see if these strains already exist in Zimbabwe. Once the result is reached, it will be released immediately.
Chivinga said that the Zimbabwean government will soon introduce a coronavirus vaccine, and the government is also developing a vaccine promotion plan and deploying related strategies.
He urged all Zimbabweans to continue to abide by epidemic prevention measures and jointly respond to the epidemic.
As of the evening of the 28th local time, a total of 32,646 confirmed cases of COVID-19 have been reported in Zimbabwe, of which 1,160 have died and 24,419 have been cured.
