IT’S still another corona sunrise sailing slowly across the globe and no country has escaped the sinister visitant that has left dark dread hanging in its trail. And Zimbabwe has been no exception.
While the number of infections in the country have “inexplicably” taken a downward turn, what is worrying health officials are the death rates – going up with 27 deaths reported yesterday – the highest since August 24, during the worst of the Delta variant.
With numbers confirming another wave of Covid-19, led by the Omicron variant, the good cheer and good feelings of the festive season have faded away and gone colder.
President Emmerson Mnangagwa has weighed in, urging that the country should go beyond herd immunity.
“The war is not yet over, the pandemic is among us, I theregfore urge the nation to remain vigilant, hopeful that this stage will eventually pass,” he said last week during a memorial service of a late cabinet minister who succumbed to Covid-19.
And the President added the Government was aiming to go further on the programme.
“We don’t aim to have herd immunity, but we aim to thoroughly vaccinate the entire nation, said the President.
In response to the initial outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, the country was among the first off the blocks, opening and making available vaccine doses to its citizens free of charge – with donations and purchases from China, Russia and India.
The programme represented a cornerstone of the Government’s effort to contain the outbreak and mitigate the effects of the pandemic that garnered plaudits and recommendations from the World Health Organisation (WHO) and other international humanitarian organisations.
The WHO praised President Mnangagwa’s administration for the way it confronted the deadly pandemic – with one of the lowest recorded infections and death rates on the continent due to the virus.
Because Omicron is so easily transmissible, it is spreading with unprecedented speed globally. This has left everyone concerned and worried.
According to the country’s ministry of health ministry and child care, the country had, as at 23 December, 201 344 confirmed cases, including 151 309 recoveries and 4 855 deaths. To date, a total of 4 089 039 people have been vaccinated against the Covid-19.
With growing evidence of the vaccines’ power to prevent serious disease and blunt transmission of the Covid-19, public health officials are unified in their belief that the success of the government’s programme hinged on the country attaining and going beyond the herd immunity.
Ambitious?
“It may appear that way but as Government we’re doing all we can to get to that target,” Dr Agnes Mahomva, chief coordinator in the Office of the President and Cabinet on the Covid-19, told The Afronews in a telephone interview.
People not yet vaccinated should just do more.
“Just roll up your sleeve and get the jab – travelling or not,” she added.
Viruses are travellers – and over time they mutate. During the festive days there is a lot of travelling within and across borders. This presents an environment for the spread of the virus.
“Wherever vaccine coverage is patchy, there is selective pressure to evolve resistance,” says one epidemiologist in the Midlands city of Gweru.
“And we need to go up a gear in the vaccination programme so that the virus won’t undermine our vaccines,” he says.
“It’s not easy to vaccinate over half the population but Government has played its part and it is now up to citizens to comply and play their part as well,” he explains.
He however warns that there could be a surge if complacency creeps in over the festive days and re-emphasised the need for compliance with WHO protocols and need for citizens to comply with mask mandates, avoid crowded risky indoor public settings, washing of hands regularly – and to get vaccinated or boosted!
By Patrick Musira
