….as festive season approaches

Staff Reporter

Government has raised the Covid 19 alert levels amid the expected return of Zimbabwe nationals for the festive season.

Thousands of Zimbabweans are expected to flock back into the country for the festive season and Government has put up measures to minimise the spread of Covid 19 virus during the festive season.

Presenting the weekly post-Cabinet media briefing today, Acting Minister of Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services, Minister Jenfan Muswere said that Cabinet agreed on a number of strategies in order to ensure that the Covid 19 pandemic is kept under check.

“In light of the upcoming festive season, Cabinet resolved on the following strategies in order to ensure that the pandemic is kept under check; strengthening enforcement and adherence to WHO COVID-19 protocols; strengthening genomic sequencing to quickly identify any imported new variants; and introducing an electronic vaccination register to enable easy identification and follow up of those yet to receive second and third doses,” said Minister Muswere.

The Minister added that in an effort to boost the Covid 19 vaccination drive, Government secured a total of three million COVID-19 vaccine doses from China, of which one million doses were donated to First Lady, Amai Auxillia Mnangagwa by the Chinese First Lady, Peng Liyuan.

Minister Muswere informed that since the first Covid 19 case was detected in the country, the disease’s recovery rate was at 98 percent with only 539 active cases having been reported.

Meanwhile, regarding the national vaccination programme, Minister Muswere said that as at 27 November 2022, a total of 6 569 603 first doses of the COVID-19 vaccine had been administered, while 4 937 735 people had received their second dose, and 1 239 453 their third dose.