President Emmerson Mnangagwa has extended the level two lockdown by a further two weeks while introducing new measures.
The extension comes after a number of Covid-19 infected persons continue to increase across all parts of the country.
In a statement Mnangagwa said:
“Over the last two weeks, the nation has experienced a 472% dramatic and exponential increase in new COVID-19 cases, with 28 904 new cases being recorded last week alone, compared to the 5 055 cases the week before.
The last genomic sequencing has linked all the cases to the highly transmissible new Omicron variant.
“Though the majority of the positive cases have mild disease, the numbers are very high, and the proportion of the moderate to severe disease is likely to overwhelm our case management capacity, given our acute depletion of specialized human resources in our health institutions.”
On Covid-19 new measures Mnangangwa scaled down all Government activities to 30%, except for essential services.
He directed commuters to wear face masks in both public and private transport settings stressing that strict law enforcement will be in place for this critical public health measure.
Hotels and lodges were directed to provide room services to their clients, as opposed to gathering in restaurants and bars without face masks with businesses that are subject to annual shutdown encouraged to close early for the festive season, at least by Unity Day 22 December 2021.
He further encouraged all those eligible for COVID-19 vaccination, including the booster shot, to be vaccinated.
The Zanu Pf first secretary also urged members of the public to continue adhering to all the recommended public health preventive measures, such as wearing face masks properly, avoiding closed spaces, avoiding crowded gatherings, washing of hands with soap and running water, sanitizing, social distancing and getting vaccinated.
