BY NIZBERT MOYO/RICHARD MUPONDE/HARRIET CHIKANDIWA FORMER Health and Child Care minister Henry Madzorera has rapped government and questioned its commitment to addressing the deadly COVID-19 pandemic after the number of deaths breached the 1 000 mark on Sunday. Madzorera, who was the Health minister during the Government of National Unity (GNU) from 2009 to 2013, said government should come up with the necessary policies to reduce the number of COVID-19 deaths in the country. He said citizens had been complying with the COVID-19 regulations, whose objective was to flatten the curve of infections, but poor strategies to deal with the pandemic had resulted in an escalation in the number of deaths. “The problem is that we are just on COVID-19 lockdown period (30 days), but we are not doing the other necessary things to ensure that the lockdown works and flattens the curve,” Madzorera said. “I think people are trying hard to isolate themselves, observe general personal hygiene, churches have stopped, we have less funeral gatherings, but people are being constrained by the government which is failing to do its bit in terms of massive testing and isolation,’’ he said. The former Health minister said the country did not have enough resources to get everyone tested, adding that prolonging the lockdown period would be suicidal as government had failed to provide social safety nets to the struggling public. “People will start dying from hunger and starvation without even violating the COVID-19 regulations and businesses are going to fold,” he said. Other health analysts said complacency and failure by the government to listen to advice had led to more COVID-19 deaths. Mpilo Central Hospital acting chief executive officer Solwayo Ngwenya said the country was paying a heavy price for allowing festivities and opening borders. “It started with the reopening of schools in October and then the opening of borders, allowing flights in. So inevitably, they brought in a lot of infections from South Africa over merrymaking at the Christmas holidays and the people disregarded COVID-19 regulations during the period holding by parties and so on,” he said. Itai Rusike, the executive director of the Community Working Group on Health, said politicians were not an essential service and should stay at home. “Politicians are not immune to COVID-19 infections, hence, must also take the disease seriously by adhering to all the World Health Organisation recommended guidelines and also stay at home during this lockdown in order to avoid further loss of lives. “Most of our politicians are old, while others have underlying medical issues which make them very vulnerable to COVID-19 infections,” Rusike said. Follow us on Twitter @NewsDayZimbabwe