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Thandeka Moyo-Ndlovu, Health Reporter
COVID-19 deaths surpassed the 1 000 mark on Sunday, with most fatalities having been recorded this month.

The Ministry of Health and Child Care said 1005 deaths had been recorded by Sunday when the country had 8 065 active cases.

There has been a spike in cases since the festive season, a development that forced Government to impose a 30-day strict lockdown.

“We recorded 31 deaths and 313 new cases were reported in the last 24 hours. As at 24 January 2021, Zimbabwe had 31 320 confirmed cases, including 22 250 recoveries and 1 005 deaths,” said the Ministry.

“As of January 23, there were 105 hospitalised cases and 91 are mild to moderate, nine severe and five are in intensive care unit.”

Since the outbreak of the pandemic in March to December 31 last year, 363 people succumbed to the virus. So far this month, more than 600 deaths have been recorded.

During the festive season the country recorded a sharp increase in Covid-19 cases with 1 342 cases and 29 deaths being reported in a week, marking the highest number of infections and deaths to be ever recorded since March last year.

After a week into the new year, the country recorded 34 deaths in one single day on January 5.

The number of deaths reached 500 on January 10 and two weeks later they have doubled to 1 005.
Acting Bulawayo provincial medical director Dr Welcome Mlilo recently said there are fears that the worst is yet to come hence the need for people to change their behaviour.

He said if the present trend continues, the country’s health care system may not be able to cope.

“We know that in Zimbabwe we don’t have the capacity that we are seeing across for example in South Africa. In situations like this, we all need to play our roles and I don’t think we have started paying for December festivities.

The Covid-19 has a 14-day incubation period and we fear for the worst in few days to come because of the partying which happened during the festivities,” said Dr Mlilo.
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