HARARE – Zimbabwe announced a record number of Covid-19 deaths on Friday – 102 – as doctors warned that hospitals were filling up.
The government, meanwhile, announced police would get tougher in restricting inter-city travel, including blocking access to major towns by travellers from nearby dormitory towns.
“Our Covid-19 numbers are not looking good. At the heart of this is our penchant for moving around and mingling. Something has to shift. The status quo is not an option,” government spokesman Ndavaningi Mangwana warned.
“The government is not trying to make lives hard for the people, but to keep all of us alive. We’re currently dying in large numbers. Travelling less helps.”
Police would block access to Harare by residents of Chitungwiza and Norton, Mangwana said – a controversial move as many residents in the two towns work in Harare.
The 102 deaths recorded on Friday set a new national record, with a previous high of 86 only reported two days earlier on July 15. The seven-day average of 62 deaths per day is the highest since the virus was first detected in March last year.
The 70 people who died during the Covid-19 second wave on January 25 was the previous high.
A record 762 people are in hospital, the ministry of health said.
Infections are also soaring. The ministry of health said there were 2,296 new infections on Friday, easing from a record 2,491 cases reported a day earlier.
Parirenyatwa Hospital in Harare and the United Bulawayo Hospitals – two of the country’s major hospitals with sections reserved for Covid-19 patients – are full, doctors at the two facilities said.
The government has identified intercity travel as the driver of new infections.
“Law enforcement agents will be ensuring that intercity travel will only be permitted for those providing essential services or traveling for humanitarian reasons such as seeking medical treatment. Proof of provision of essential services may be required at police checkpoints,” Mangwana said.
Last week, thousands of Chitungwiza residents commuting to Harare were turned back at a police checkpoint nicknamed “Chitungwiza-Harare border post”.
Mangwana added that Statutory instrument 198 of 2021 defines intercity travel as movement “between any cities or between municipalities or towns established or deemed to have been established in terms of the Urban Councils Act.”
Under the travel restrictions gazetted by the government, “intra-city travel” is only permitted if residents “provide an essential service” or seek “food or medication within a 5km radius.”
“Measures including but not limited to police checkpoints, will be intensified to ensure that members of the public comply with the measures,” Mangwana added in a statement.
President Emmerson Mnangagwa this week announced an ambitious plan to vaccinate one million people within two weeks after extending the Level 4 lockdown.
On Friday, 47,506 people received their first dose and 5,716 their second shot, according to government figures. To date, 1,036,252 of Zimbabwe’s 15 million people have received the first dose, while 630,610 are now fully vaccinated.
