Lockdown reprieve for sporting facilities

By Patience Rashai

As Government moves toward restoring normalcy to our day to day activities, Cabinet has moved to partially uplift lockdown restrictions on certain sporting disciplines.

Speaking at the 16th cabinet decision matrix, the Minister of Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services, Monica Mutsvangwa said that Government had realised the need to prioritise health by loosening up restrictions on certain sporting fields.

“Cabinet has approved the amendment of sections of Statutory Instrument 110 of 2020 pertaining to low risk sporting activities. More details on the actual sports covered will be supplied by the Ministry of Youth, Sport, Arts and Recreation in due course.

“It must be stressed that the lifting of the lockdown on low risk sporting activities will be limited to training purposes only, and as such not open to competition or spectators,” she added.

This move comes in the wake of calls by healthy experts to encourage a lot of outdoor activities as this is said to assist on one’s health.

Globally, many countries are slowly warming up to certain sporting disciplines with the UK issuing new guidelines that allows one to exercise outdoors as many times as they can each day using outdoor sports courts or facilities, such as a tennis or basketball court, or golf course – with members of their household, or one other person while staying 2 metres apart.