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PANIC has gripped the ruling Zanu PF party after two senior party officials on Sunday tested positive for COVID-19 with confirmed cases likely to go up as results of mass tests done recently continue to pour in. BY MOSES MATENGA Zanu PF secretary for administration Obert Mpofu and the party’s director for Information Tafadzwa Mugwadi are now in isolation at home together with affected members of their respective families. The Zanu PF COVID-19 scare comes as Zimbabwe has recorded 291 deaths with 10 of them having been recorded on Saturday only. Ministry of Health and Child Care COVID-19 statistics yesterday showed that there are 10 718 cases of the virus that have been recorded throughout the country. However, the country has also recorded 8 880 recoveries. The party’s secretary for Health David Parirenyatwa yesterday told NewsDay in an interview that the party was now on high alert, adding that all measures were being put in place to curb the further spread of the deadly virus at their headquarters situated in Harare, which also houses a number of party bigwigs and staff. The Zanu PF headquarters also plays host to several party meetings. “What we did last time was to screen people and the results are coming in batches and all those who have been found to be positive have been asked to go into self-isolation and to come back after the prescribed date,” Parirenyatwa said without confirming the actual number of those affected. “When we started the COVID-19 tests as a party, the first batch had five cases but that was about two months ago. So we are now going symptomatically and we check on anyone who would have developed the symptoms. The first time, we did a mass test but now we are following the national policy and that is what we are doing,” he said. Parirenyatwa said the party was putting on a lot of measures to reduce the spread of the virus that has already claimed millions of lives internationally. “We are putting a lot of measures now; we screen people at the gate, we do temperature checks and all the normal routine. We are intensifying that and even in our lifts, we have put COVID-19 measures, and as people get into other offices we make sure prevention protocols are observed,” he said. Mugwadi yesterday took to microblogging site Twitter to announce that he was self-isolating at home and is adhering to all medical tips to suppress the virus. “I will adhere to every medical tip as I battle this pandemic with my family,” Mugwadi wrote on his social media account. Acting Zanu PF spokesperson Patrick Chinamasa was not immediately available to comment on the matter. However, workers at the ruling party headquarters who spoke on condition of anonymity said there were fears that quite a number of people at the party offices could have contracted COVID-19. Most of the officials work from the building and were feared to have been in close contact with the infected. To make matters worse, they were currently reportedly deployed across the country for the party district co-ordinating committee (DCC) elections, whereas a
The president also stressed the importance of keeping the economy open after months of stifling movement restrictions.
He urged citizens not to drop their guard and continue adhering to the health rules, such as wearing face masks and respecting curfew times.
South Africa has recorded just over 800,000 coronavirus infections - more than a third of the cases reported across the African continent - and over 20,000 deaths.
AFP
According to The New York Times, the use of tear gas can cause damage to people’s lungs and make them more susceptible to contracting a respiratory disease such as COVID-19.
Considering many of the protests have been led by Black people, there’s no telling how folks will be affected once the protests subside.
Black people already disproportionately suffer pre-conditions like asthma and heart disease, which can impact their ability to fight the coronavirus.
More Black and brown people also tend to be essential workers, so professionals were already working in high risks jobs, which could potentially spread the disease to their community.
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\tAlso On NewsOne:
The robots were donated by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) to the Kanyinya treatment center that treats Covid-19 patients in the capital city, Kigali.
The robots — named Akazuba, Ikirezi, Mwiza, Ngabo, and Urumuri — were received by the country’s Minister of Health and Minister of ICT and Innovation last week.
According to Dr. Daniel Ngamije, Rwanda’s minister of health, they also have the capacity to capture sound and visual data of patients and can notify health workers on detected abnormalities.
The robots have the capacity to deliver medicine, food, and other essentials in place of frontline workers to Covid-19 patients undergoing treatment, Ngamije said.
The robot in a hospital in Seattle was employed to check the man’s vitals, limiting contact with health workers.
So if you take the countries, United States, Spain, the UK, France, China — these are the countries that are the largest tourism destinations in the world, and these are also the countries that have had the highest rates of infection.
So I think moving forward, with respect to tourism, countries will be very careful even as they seek to rebuild the industry, and especially in the Caribbean where tourism is critical in terms of earning foreign exchange,” he said.
According to The UWI Mona deputy principal: “I do not foresee any immediate move towards reopening these borders unless places like the United States and the United Kingdom, Germany, et cetera — where most of our tourists come from — unless they also have the pandemic under control and they have also determined what sort of protocols have to be here if their citizens need to visit other countries.”
We don't know for sure when the borders will be reopened and when these tourists will arrive, but I suspect that what I said earlier about understanding what other countries will be doing will also help to inform our decision to go forward.
Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett last week indicated that Jamaica's tourism industry will be reopened in short order, with a date to be declared.
Climate threats are currently high across much of Africa, with floods, droughts and the biggest locust outbreak in generations.
Increased restrictions on movement due to COVID-19 may intensify the effects and put people at even more risk.
Major desert locust outbreaks across East Africa are threatening food security in at least eight countries and are projected to continue spreading.
Sudden onset climate change disasters such as extreme temperatures, landslides, droughts, wildfires, floods or hurricanes are the top drivers of internal migration.
In sudden onset climate disasters, people mostly flee to the nearest safe location or where there's aid.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. economy entered a recession in February as the coronavirus struck the nation, a group of economists declared Monday, ending the longest expansion on record.
The economists said that employment, income and spending peaked in February and then fell sharply afterward as the viral outbreak shut down businesses across the country, marking the start of the downturn after nearly 11 full years of economic growth.
In the previous recession, the committee did not declare that the economy was in recession until December 2008, a year after it had actually begun.
“The unprecedented magnitude of the decline in employment and production, and its broad reach across the entire economy, warrants the designation of this episode as a recession, even if it turns out to be briefer than earlier contractions,” the NBER panel said.
In its updated global outlook, the World Bank projected that international economic activity will shrink by 5.2% this year, the deepest recession since a contraction in 1945-46 at the end of World War II.
The comments to a US Senate committee hearing on the virus came as at least 17 states have paused or rolled back their reopening plans in response to a surge in new infections.
State and local leaders have said case rates have been rising in much of the country, driven in part by gatherings, both in homes and in places like bars — which some experts have called the perfect breeding ground for the virus.
The rethinking of how to safely reopen the US comes as 36 states have showed an upward trend in average new daily cases — an increase of at least 10% — over the last seven days, as of Tuesday, according to data from Johns Hopkins.
These states are: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming.
Two states saw average daily cases decline more than 10% over those seven days: New Jersey and Rhode Island.
(Photo by Naohiko Hatta - Pool/Getty Images)
If you thought Memorial Day weekend marked the end of the coronavirus’ first wave of victims, the World Health Organization wants you to pump your breaks on the premature celebrations.
According to Newsweek, Monday, representatives from WHO revealed that even though countries all over Europe and North America have begun to reopen in the wake of widespread quarantines, many nations are still experiencing alarming upticks in the number of novel coronavirus cases.
READ MORE: White House imposes coronavirus travel ban on Brazil
WHO’s Executive Director of Emergencies, Dr. Michael Ryan explained during the press conference that outbreak confirmed by health officials in South America, Africa and South Asia, actually rose sharply just in the last week alone.
Tuesday, it was confirmed that over 5.5 million cases of the novel coronavirus have been confirmed worldwide since the start of the global pandemic, resulting in at least 346,836 deaths.
READ MORE: The New York Times publishes breathtaking front page as U.S. coronavirus deaths near 100,000
Though many annual events that involved large groups of people have postponed or cancelled their 2020 plans, President Donald Trump asked North Carolina to still hold the Republican National Convention scheduled there for August.
FRESH fissures are emerging in the ruling Zanu PF party with cadres seen as loyal to President Emmerson Mnangagwa under the Team Lacoste banner facing purges amid reports of a plot to reform the party’s base structures by remnants of the rival G40 camp. BY BRENNA MATENDERE/GARIKAI MAFIRAKUREVA On Saturday, four Mnangagwa loyalists in Midlands were slapped with suspension letters, including his nephew Esau Natare, who unsuccessfully stood as the party’s parliamentary candidate for Gweru Urban in the 2018 elections. Natare, a military official, was suspended by the provincial co-ordinating committee (PCC) for alleged misconduct and was banned from holding any position for the next three years. The vehicle he was given in the build-up to the elections was withdrawn while sources also indicated there were overtures to have him booted from his military job. The partys 2018 parliamentary candidate for Mkoba constituency Charles Simbi who is a prominent Team Lacoste member was also purged and his vehicle withdrawn. Two other rabid supporters of Mnangagwa who were pivotal during the late former leader Robert Mugabe’s rule in fighting the G40 camp, Rumbidzai Waungana and Winny Manyumwa, were also given the boot. Sources said the purges were part of a broader scheme to weaken Mnangagwa’s grip on the grassroot structures. “In Harare recently there was also a plot to purge another Team Lacoste cadre in the name of Godwin Gomwe and we are likely to see more loyalists of President Mnangagwa falling by the way side. It’s a bigger scheme and G40 is on the rebound. This explains why former G40 officials who were suspended are trickling back into the party such as former Cabinet minister Annastancia Ndlovu who is now working at the party headquarters in Harare,” the source said. Former Sports minister Makhosini Hlongwane and ex-Public Service deputy minister Tapiwa Matangaidze who were suspended from the party for their G40 links, have formally submitted their applications for re-admission into Zanu PF. Addressing a weekend Midlands Zanu PF PCC meeting, provincial chairperson Daniel Mackenzie Ncube confirmed the development, but said a decision was yet to be made by the province on the duo’s application. Zanu PF acting spokesperson Patrick Chinamasa said the suspensions were not linked to any succession plots. “I dismiss such reports as utter rubbish. The suspensions are clearly isolated cases. There is no broader plan in them at all. Some of the cases like that of (Chivi South MP Killer) Zivhu actually came to the politburo and we dealt with them there. There is no scheme against President Mnangagwa at all unless if you can give me the evidence. Zanu PF is a big organisation which is not run through rumours,” he said. In a related matter, former Chiredzi West ward 3 councillor Tarusenga Makamba (Zanu PF) has been suspended from the party for four years for giving an interview to online publication, Lowveld Checkpoint, in May this year. His sister Loice Makamba, who was ward 3 chairperson, was also suspended for the same period
Zimbabweans have urged African leaders to up their game in terms of improving political and economic problems which have hallmarked their rule since the continent was freed from colonial oppression.
\"Right now, we have very few African countries that are doing well because political parties which fought the liberation struggle are the ones which are still ruling in most countries and there is nowhere we are going.
\"African youths should play a central role in reforming the continent.
Other citizens chose to look at the silver lining on the continent, zeroing in on the coronavirus menace which seems to have been more lenient on the continent as opposed to the first world.
\"We have heard and read in newspapers that so many people have died in other continents but as of Africa, we pray our ancestors protect us.\"
The minister announced Mombasa has the highest rate of Covid-19 deaths recording 27, followed by Nairobi (20) while Siaya, Bomet and Kiambu have one fatality each.
So far, the are 37 active cases of children aged between zero and nine years, 69 cases (10 to 19 years), 238 (20 to 24 years), 268 (30 to 39 years), 172 (40 to 49), 112 (50 to 59) and 76 cases of people aged 60 and above.
Out of Kenya’s 47 counties, 23 have had cases of the virus with the majority, at 83 per cent, reported in Mombasa and Nairobi.
Nairobi is leading with 470 cases followed by Mombasa at 331, whole Kajiado is third with 43 cases.
Machakos has three cases, Garissa, Bungoma, Homa Bay, Siaya two cases each while Meru, Bomet and Isiolo have single cases.
[Nation] More than 10 clubs in the Coast have been shut down for flouting the Ministry of Health guidelines that seek to combat the spread of Covid-19.
[Citizen] Dar es Salaam -- Cashew nuts production will be short of target by over 20 percent this year, new projections by the Cashewnut Board of Tanzania (CBT) show.
AS several countries ease into relaxing the strict measures taken to contain the dreaded novel coronavirus outbreak, top officials of the World Health Organization (WHO) are urging extreme caution, warning that the volatility of the virus could result in a second peak, long before a second wave, causing further devastation.
“We congratulate countries who have managed to contain and suppress the disease transmission; when we speak about a second wave classically what we often mean is that there will be a first wave and the disease by itself effectively goes to a very low level and then it curves a number of months later.
We cannot make assumptions that just because the disease is on the way down now it's gonna keep going down and then we are going to get a number of months to get ready for a second wave,” the WHO's emergencies chief Dr Michael Ryan told a press briefing in Geneva, Switzerland, yesterday.
We got a second peak, not necessarily a second wave, and therefore I think right now countries in Europe, countries in North America, many other countries around the world and South East Asia have to continue to put in place the public health and social measures, the surveillance measures, the testing measures and a comprehensive strategy to ensure that we continue on a downward trajectory and that we don't have an immediate second peak,” he said.
In the meantime, WHO Head Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said stringency in social and public health measures remain paramount if countries are to overtake the virus and remain in the lead.
(Trinidad Express) Another Covid-19 patient has died, bringing the death toll from the virus in this country to 112.
The article Covid cases jump in Trinidad prisons appeared first on Stabroek News.
[Ethiopian Herald] Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed (PhD) said that the country has made significant preparations to make the upcoming election free, fair and credible and its postponement would jeopardize the public's constitutionally guaranteed right to be administrated by an elected government.
