Zimbabwe eases coronavirus restrictions as recovery rate rises to 95%

Zimbabwe yesterday eased Level Two coronavirus lockdown restrictions after cases continue to drop and deaths slowed down.

It allowed schools to open on 7 February and restaurants to operate from 8am to 10pm but only for those that are fully vaccinated and reduced curfew hours to midnight to 5.30am.

Returning residents will no longer be quarantined if they are fully vaccinated.

Cases dropped to 6 645 after the country recorded 237 new cases and nine deaths but 656 people recovered.

Mashonaland East, which is currently the worst affected, had the highest number of recoveries, 324, resulting in cases dropping to 2 277. Mashonaland West remains at 1 378.

Harare and Bulawayo have the lowest number of cases at 186 and 146, respectively. Eight provinces have less than a thousand cases each and three provinces have less than 200 cases each, including Mashonaland Central which has 196.

The recovery rate rose to 95% but the positivity rate rose from 4% to 7%.

So far 329 people have died out of 16 075 cases this month, the fourth highest figure since the outbreak of the pandemic nearly two years ago.

July 2021 had the highest number of deaths, 1 743 out of 58 996 infections. This was at the height of the more devastating Delta variant which killed 887 people in August out of 15 913 cases.

January, when the country was hit by the second wave, had 854 deaths out of 19 521 infections.

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