By Tafanana Kwedu

Concerned citizens have expressed concern over demonstrations during lockdown, stressing that if not stopped it would trigger a spike in the spread of Covid-19 infections and deaths.

Opposition forces are planning to hold an illegal demonstration dubbed #31 July against lock down regulations.

Already Covid-19 cases in Zimbabwe are surging with infections nearing 1000 including twelve deaths; with the Covid19 infection having spread from quarantine centres into our communities a situation that is making contact tracing very difficult.

Cde Mzvinavhu, “With Covid19 pandemic still around, our government authorities should not hesitate to deal with anyone behaving dangerously. Political jumping and puffing should be banned as per our current lock down law. Godly church gatherings stopped. Why should political gatherings be tolerated? When we are battling to have resources in our hospitals to improve our health sector workers’ remuneration, we should not complicate the situation by having more Covid19 infected patients.”

Moses Chaora said although the right to demonstrate is enshrined in the country’s constitution, the right should not cause more problems for the country.

“The demonstrations can wait and be held later when the Covid-19 restrictions are relaxed. Any move that can cause a spike in infections should not be tolerated and everything should be done to stop such behaviour,” said Chaora.

World Health Organisation (WHO) country representative Dr Alex Gasasira said the control of Covid-19 requires everyone’s contribution including adherence to gazetted measures and regulations announced by the Government to curb the spread of the global pandemic.

“Everybody else must continue to implement the prevention measures; physical distancing, hand washing, limiting movement to only that which is most essential. If we implement all these together, we should be able to limit the number of cases we are seeing in Zimbabwe,” said Dr Gasasira.

Countries like Madagascar have since re-imposed lockdown measures in some of its cities to stall the spread of the Covid-19 cases with South Africa also planning to return to level 5.

Government is currently mulling putting tighter measures in Harare and Bulawayo regarded as epi-centres in the country.