Coronavirus vaccination is voluntary but we need leaders in voluntary activities- Speaker

Zimbabwe’s Speaker of Parliament Jacob Mudenda yesterday said vaccination against coronavirus was voluntary but the country also needed leaders in voluntary activities.

He was responding to a question from Mutare Central legislator Innocent Gonese who wanted to know whether vaccination was still voluntary after the Member of Parliament for Mount Pleasant Samuel Banda said legislators and staff coming into Parliament must have vaccination cards to stop the spread of the coronavirus.

“Yes, the vaccination process is a voluntary exercise but we also need leaders in voluntary activities.  On the balance of probabilities, any common sense would dictate that you need to be vaccinated unless you have other means of preventing the attack by this COVID-19 – so be it, but common sense would dictate that we need to be vaccinated for the sake of our health and those who live with us,” Mudenda said.

“Hon. Banda did not suggest that any Member of Parliament who has not been vaccinated therefore does not carry a vaccination certificate should not be allowed into the premises of Parliament.  I did not hear that from him.  In any case, that would not be the case at all.”

Zimbabwe is currently experiencing a third wave of the coronavirus pandemic which has seen the country recording 9 572 cases and 167 deaths this month.

President Emmerson Mnangagwa yesterday imposed a two-week national lockdown which included a dusk-to-dawn curfew, a reduction in the number of business hours and a ban on intercity travelling.

The government also gave frontline workers two weeks to get vaccinated.

Mnangagwa’s spokesman George Charamba quipped that no constitution granted one the strange freedom to infect others.

“OUTCRY OVER MANDATORY COVID-19?  THE DAYS OF LEAVING YOU TO ENDANGER THE REST OF SOCIETY IN THE NAME OF YOUR RIGHTS MAY BE RUNNING OUT, FRANKLY!!! You can’t claim the RIGHT TO INFECT, SPREAD; no CONSTITUTION grants you that strange freedom!!! None!!!,” he tweeted.

As of yesterday 770 709 Zimbabweans had received the first dose of the coronavirus vaccine and 544 888 had been fully vaccinated.

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