The more things change, the more they remain the same

WE continue to highlight, with concern, reports from our networks, which indicate an increased level of shunning of face mask wearing.

We note the negative messages that communities are directing towards mask wearers, labelling them as disrespectful and/or saying they wanted to appear more sophisticated than the rest of the community by wearing masks around them.

We further note the same practice by congregants in various church institutions which reflect relaxed attitudes towards the pandemic and a belief that the worst is over.

● We urge government, faithbased organisations, traditional leaders and all those working to inform communities of the COVID-19 pandemic to step up the messaging and awareness-raising initiatives.

● We urge communities to remain vigilant and continue to wear masks, particularly as we note the failure in public spaces of adhering to social distancing.

Tracking, monitoring and reporting COVID-19 variants is an outstanding issue.

We continue to call for persistency and consistency in tracking, monitoring and sharing with the public the results of the genomic sequencing to trace COVID-19 variants of interest and variants of concern nationally.

We continue to amplify reports from the local scientific community calling for the need to support research in genomic surveillance of COVID-19 positive cases among fully vaccinated individuals to determine their effectiveness against variants of interests and variants of concern.

This monitoring is necessary to ensure tracking of vaccine efficacy in the face of the variants which can, indeed, nullify the gains achieved through the vaccines currently in use.

Despite cases indicating a downward trend of international COVID-19 transmissions, we remain alive to the potential infection control implications of increased relaxation of COVID-19 regulations, increased socio-economic activities and increased traffic at our borders.

The vigilance in regard to the potential variants of interest and variants of concern in a critical element in protecting the gains made thus far in the COVID-19 response.

● We call for increased support towards local research into genomic surveillance of COVID-19 positive cases among fully vaccinated individuals directly

● We call for publication of the results of COVID-19 variant tracking widely.

Women’s Coalition of Zimbabwe