Covid-19 not yet over, get fully vaccinated Bulawayo city health director Dr Edwin Sibanda

Winter has arrived, and as is common, the flu season has arrived too.

With the 2020 advent of Covid-19, generally described as a severe flu, chances are high that most people complaining of flu-like symptoms these days, would, in fact, be positive to the coronavirus too.

And as we begin our first winter in two years without some sort of lockdown, we are a bit concerned that Bulawayo has been the only province in the country to record a 10 percent increase in new cases over the past two weeks.

Covid-19

Most of the cases, we reported yesterday, have been identified at schools.

About 10 primary, secondary and tertiary institutions have been affected so far.

Statistics show that between May 25 to June 6, Bulawayo recorded a total of 383 new Covid-19 cases.

During the week ending June 1, the overall number of cases in the province stood at 304 compared to 292 new cases recorded in the previous week.

An average of 43 new cases were reported daily compared to 42 new cases in the previous week.

Dr Jenfan Muswere

In his post-Cabinet briefing on Tuesday Information Communication Technology, Postal Communication Services Minister Dr Jenfan Muswere said:

“The latest resurgence analysis reveals that Bulawayo metropolitan province is the only one which recorded more than 10 percent increase in new cases over the past two weeks.

Public health and social measures in the province will be strengthened to address this situation.”

While Bulawayo has seen the very small increase in new cases, nationally the number of new Covid-19 cases decreased by 15 percent to 1 241 cases, from the 1 454 recorded the previous week.

Bulawayo City Health Director Dr Edwin Sibanda told us that the increase in Covid-19 was because of public gatherings.

“Most of the cases are directly linked to learning institutions.

If we are to trace and test effectively, we will discover that we actually have more cases than what has been recorded,” he said.

“Schools opened in full swing, there are no alternating classes like before, hence social distancing is very difficult since some schools have more than 2 000 learners.”

Yes, we are a little concerned about Bulawayo standing out and the possibility of more cases as winter progresses but there is no reason for anyone to panic.

We are confident that our people, not only in the city but also elsewhere across the country, will take the 10 percent increase in new cases in Bulawayo as a reminder that they need to intensify precautions against Covid-19.

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That means continuing to sanitise and washing our hands regularly, avoiding crowded places, practising respiratory hygiene and seeking treatment as soon as one experiences symptoms commonly consistent with flu.

However, one big reason why we say there is no need for anyone to panic is the progress that we are seeing in the vaccination programme against Covid-19.

About 6,2 million people had got their first dose while 4,5 million had received their second and 835 373 had had their third one by Wednesday.

Those of us who are fully vaccinated are unlikely to suffer severe disease even if they get infected.

This is the reason why all eligible citizens must be vaccinated.

We continue to impress on them to get vaccinated so that this winter progresses without incident, with all of us healthy and with no disruption in business operations and life in general.

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