The Sunday News
Judith Phiri, Sunday News Reporter
ZIMBABWE continues to witness an alarming surge in Covid-19 cases with 24 deaths recorded on Sunday, bringing the cumulative death toll from the virus to 507 in the country.
According to the Ministry of Health and Child Care daily Covid-19 update, Manicaland recorded six deaths, with Mashonaland East and Masvingo each recording four deaths, Mashonaland West recorded three deaths, while Bulawayo, Mashonaland Central and Midlands each recording two deaths, and one death was recorded in Matabeleland North. 978 new cases were reported on Sunday and all were local cases with 559 cases from Harare alone.
“About 978 new cases and 24 deaths were reported in the last 24 hours. 7 day rolling average for new cases further spike to 887 from 857 Saturday. All the 978 are local cases, with 559 recorded in Harare alone. Deaths reported by Manicaland were six, Mash East and Masvingo four deaths each, Mash West three deaths, Bulawayo, Mash Central and Midlands two deaths each, and Mat North one death. 4 936 PCR tests were done and the positivity was 20 percent,” the Ministry said.
The Ministry also reported that 143 new recoveries were reported with the National Recovery rate standing at 58.6 percent and active cases going up to 8 388.
As of 10 January, Zimbabwe had now recorded 21 477 confirmed cases, including 12 582 recoveries and 507 deaths.
On Sunday, Harare was leading with 559 new cases, followed by Mash with 83, Midlands with 69 and 66 recorded from Manicaland and Masvingo each.
Part of the statistics also state that Harare has the highest number of active cases per capita, followed by Manicaland and Mash East.
The country is currently on day 9 of Level 4 national lockdown that Government imposed with effect from Saturday 2 January 2021 to combat the spread of Covid-19.
Meanwhile, the country could receive its first batch of the Covid-19 vaccine next month, with Government now finalising its national vaccine deployment plan and training of health care workers who will administer the inoculations.
The country is preparing to take delivery of the vaccines procured under a global ground-breaking initiative led by the World Health Organisation, known as Covax, which plans to secure and distribute billions of doses of vaccines to African countries, once licensed and approved.
