News / Local
Covid-19 storm imminent, says Prof Ngwenya
31 Jan 2021 at 06:55hrs | Views
MPILO Hospital acting chief executive officer, Professor Solwayo Ngwenya has warned that the country is headed for a Covid-19 storm if the public does not abide to the national lockdown regulations.
This comes as the country recorded a decline in Covid-19 cases last week (as of Friday) with 1 945 new cases as compared to 4 126 in the previous week. According to statistics from the Ministry of Health and Child Care, last week, the day with the highest number of new infections was on Tuesday with 358 cases.
The country had 3 505 recoveries, which translated to an average recovery rate of 73 percent and 204 deaths were recorded, a drop from the 291 that were reported in the previous week. Harare had the highest number of new infections at 596 and 102 deaths.
In an interview with Sunday News Prof Ngwenya said there was too much ignorance within the public, which was a clear build-up up to a catastrophe which would cripple the country's health sector. He said the country was now just experiencing index cases of the second wave, which if not handled properly could degenerate into a Covid-19 storm.
"There is a lot of ignorance, a lot of misinformation regarding this Covid-19 pandemic, its like a war and in a war the first casualty is usually the truth. Personally, I have tried giving out a lot of information relating to this pandemic as part of efforts to ensure that people do not wake up in a day having been consumed by this pandemic.
People are continuing to socialise, ignoring the lockdown regulation, which is giving the virus time to replicate and change its structure because the virus also wants to survive, our behaviour is actually allowing this virus to get stronger and when it gets stronger, we will reach a point where we won't be able to defend ourselves," said Prof Ngwenya.
He said the Covid-19 storm will see people just falling sick at the same time, without enough ambulances, leading to hospitals being overwhelmed.
"People rush to convince Government to declare their respective industries as essential services of which to myself as a health expert I believe it is more like asking to be declared to die. At the end of the day these lockdowns are rendered useless as people are not considering this pandemic as a medical emergency but instead are always looking for means to circumvent it. The population is not complementing what Government is trying to do," said Prof Ngwenya.
This comes as the country recorded a decline in Covid-19 cases last week (as of Friday) with 1 945 new cases as compared to 4 126 in the previous week. According to statistics from the Ministry of Health and Child Care, last week, the day with the highest number of new infections was on Tuesday with 358 cases.
The country had 3 505 recoveries, which translated to an average recovery rate of 73 percent and 204 deaths were recorded, a drop from the 291 that were reported in the previous week. Harare had the highest number of new infections at 596 and 102 deaths.
In an interview with Sunday News Prof Ngwenya said there was too much ignorance within the public, which was a clear build-up up to a catastrophe which would cripple the country's health sector. He said the country was now just experiencing index cases of the second wave, which if not handled properly could degenerate into a Covid-19 storm.
People are continuing to socialise, ignoring the lockdown regulation, which is giving the virus time to replicate and change its structure because the virus also wants to survive, our behaviour is actually allowing this virus to get stronger and when it gets stronger, we will reach a point where we won't be able to defend ourselves," said Prof Ngwenya.
He said the Covid-19 storm will see people just falling sick at the same time, without enough ambulances, leading to hospitals being overwhelmed.
"People rush to convince Government to declare their respective industries as essential services of which to myself as a health expert I believe it is more like asking to be declared to die. At the end of the day these lockdowns are rendered useless as people are not considering this pandemic as a medical emergency but instead are always looking for means to circumvent it. The population is not complementing what Government is trying to do," said Prof Ngwenya.
Source - sundaynews
