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Herald Reporter
Zimbabweans have heeded preventative and precautionary measures put in place by President Mnangagwa to contain the spread of Covid-19 and Government is hopeful the number of recorded cases will not continue to rise.

For eight straight days until Thursday, the number of confirmed cases remained at 34 out of over 17 000 tests done so far.

Speaking at the donation of food hampers sourced by the Hindoo Society Harare to seven charity organisations in Harare yesterday, where she was the guest speaker, Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services Minister, Monica Mutsvangwa said it was important for people to realise there was no vaccine for Covid-19 yet, leaving prevention and containment as the only alternatives.

As such, Minister Mutsvangwa said people should continue to heed Government’s instructions and advice on Covid-19.

The preventative measures that Government was implementing include the national lockdown, emphasis on social distancing and practising of good hygiene.

“To date, we are cautiously in low figures (and) as I was giving figures to the nation yesterday, (Thursday) we are still at 34. Those are the ones who have been found to be confirmed cases of Covid-19 and for the last seven days it has remained at 34,” said Minister Mutsvangwa.

She said the low number of positive cases was because people have heeded President Mnangagwa’s prevention precautions, including staying home.

“We are very grateful that our people have heeded to those measures and we implore Zimbabweans to continue making sure that at least we stay at home if we don’t have any reason to go out and if we go out there, that we actually donning our masks properly and as we have said, if you don’t have masks which are bought from the shops, you can actually improvise by making use of a doek or scarf to just make sure that you don’t go out there without that mask.”

Minister Mutsvangwa said President Mnangagwa was quick to respond to the Covid-19 threat by ordering a national lockdown, beginning March 30. He also set up a Covid-19 inter-ministerial taskforce to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic.

“Let me say there is yet no vaccine for Covid-19.

“We keep on telling our people that it’s important to wash our hands even where we don’t have sanitisers, let us wash our hands with soap thoroughly. Where we don’t have soap, let’s use even ashes to wash our hands,” said Minister Mutsvangwa.

Government had ramped up the testing of people.

A number of isolation facilities have also been put in place.

Minister Mutsvangwa said although the country’s borders were closed, they remained open for returning citizens.

She applauded the Hindoo Society Harare for heeding the President’s call to extend a helping hand to fight Covid-19.

A member of the Hindoo Society Harare, Mr Elesh Patel said: “We thought besides looking at the medical side of it, we thought that there will be a lot of people actually in need of basic things like foodstuffs.

We do this on a regular basis, maybe after every two months or so, and we actually rotate the organisations and the children’s homes that we donate to.”

The organisations that benefited from the donation are Hope Orphans Support Services, Frederick Caley Cottages, Dorothy Duncan Centre for the Blind, Peaceinsight Organisation, Adult Rape Education, Kudavana Orphanage Ward 20 Mutare and Cyclone Idai victims.