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Herald Reporter

Zimbabwe recorded another 102 deaths yesterday from Covid-19, 72 people dying yesterday with another 30 from Harare who had died between Monday and Wednesday now entering the statistics.

This takes the total Covid-19 death toll to 2 520.

But both the 72 new deaths and the 102 recorded in one day unfortunately break the records, the previous highest total dying in a day being 70 on 24 January.

However, the new case figure fell to 2 296 with the first hint of a possible plateauing of infection coming from the first fall in the seven-day rolling average, which measures trends, since early June. The rolling average fell from 2 355 to 2300. If the rolling average remains stable or continues falling for several days it will be a sign that the peak of the third wave has been reached, although there will still be many more cases and deaths before the wave finally recedes.

The most hopeful note yesterday was another giant jump in vaccination rates with Thursday’s record being dramatically exceeded to 59 750 first doses and 5 128 to give a total of 64 878 jabs in one day, only the second time the 50 000 total has been exceeded. The total number of jabs are now 1 096 002 first jabs, 635 738 second jabs to give a grand total of 1 731 740 doses administered.

If Zimbabwe averages 50 000 doses a day it will be delivering 1,5 million doses a month and higher totals mean that even that figure will be exceeded.