5 Masvingo family members catch COVID-19

FIVE Masvingo family members have tested positive to COVID-19, a government official said yesterday.

The new infections come at a time when complacency has been high among Zimbabweans ever since the infection rate dropped at the onset of summer.

Masvingo provincial COVID-19 taskforce spokesperson Rogers Irimai said the five, from Rujeko high-density suburb, were asymptomatic and self-isolating at home.

“We got new cases where two parents, their two children and a minor relative tested positive for the disease. These are local infections as the parents were not in contact with any known COVID-19 positive returnee or travelled out of the city or country recently,” he said.

Irimai said the COVID-19 rapid response team was busy doing contact tracing at the parents’ workplaces in the city, as well as the school where the two minors, who are in Grade 7, were going to.

“Our rapid response team is busy doing contact tracing to establish who the patients have been in contact with recently. The teachers and classes at the school where the kids are going are likely to be placed under quarantine, the other kids they play with in their neighbourhood, as well as the workplaces of the parents,” he said.

“Let us not be complacent, there is a second wave of COVID-19 that is hitting other countries that had relaxed lockdown measures. We are not divorced from such countries as we do not exist on an island. We are not immune from a second wave which can be more dangerous and come with a stronger strain,” Irimai said.

To date, Zimbabwe has recorded 8 444 COVID-19 positive cases, 7 975 recoveries and 248 deaths.