More Zimbabweans die of coronavirus in 18 days than those who died last year

Sixty Zimbabweans, 36 of them in Harare, died of coronavirus today raising the death toll for the past 18 days to 410 almost 50 more than the death toll for last year.

There were 689 new cases today, bringing the number of cases for this year to 14 025 which was 158 more than the cases recorded since the outbreak in March to the end of December.

Zimbabwe has so far recorded 773 deaths and had only 363 deaths last year.

The number of cases is now 27 892 up from 13 867 at the end of December.

A total of 860 people recovered today bringing the total to 17 372.

The number of active cases dropped to 9 747.

Harare still has the highest number of active cases but they dropped to 4 365 after it recorded 301 recoveries.

Manicaland remained in second spot with 1 250 case. It had 10 deaths today.

Mashonaland East had 204 recoveries which resulted in the number of active cases dropping to 934.

Bulawayo remained in fourth place with 661 active cases.

The government imposed a 30-day lockdown on 5 January to curb the spread of the disease which seems to have come with a vengeance.

Acting President Constantino Chiwenga, who is also Minister of Health, said the government had no intention of extending the lockdown if people changed their behavior but the numbers might force the government to review its position.

The pandemic is, however, playing havoc across the globe.

There are now 95.8 million cases. So far 2.05 million people have died, 68.4 million have recovered but there are still 25.4 million active cases.

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