WCOZ Situation Report
ZIMBABWE LOCKDOWN: DAY 502
13 August 2021
502 days of the COVID-19 Lockdown, and as of 12 th of August 2021, the Ministry of Health and Child Care reported that,
the cumulative number of COVID-19 cases had increased to 118 754 after 800 new cases all local cases, were recorded.
The highest case tally was recorded in Matebeleland North with 126 cases. The hotspots updates are as follows;
Mashonaland West Province – Hurungwe (18), Kariba (4), Makonde (11), Mashonaland Central – Bindura (28), Mazowe
(9). Mashonaland East – Marondera (25), Murehwa (23). Masvingo Province – Chiredzi (16), Masvingo (0), Midland
Province-Kwekwe (11), Harare Province-Harare (101).
We note that the Hospitalisation rate as at 15:00hrs on 11 August 2021 was 512 hospitalised cases: 48 New Admissions,
119 Asymptomatic cases, 287 mild-to-moderate cases, 80 severe cases and 26 cases in Intensive Care Units. (Wilkins,
Providence, Arundel, B5 Leon, St Michaels, West End, St Anne’s, and Montague did not report).
Active cases went down to 19 782. The total number of recoveries went up to 94 925 increasing by 1 423 recoveries. The
recovery rate remains at 79%. A total of 33 392 people received their 1st doses of vaccine. The cumulative number of
the 1st dose vaccinated now stands at 1 966 612. A total of 47 809 recipients received their second dose bringing the
cumulative number of 2nd dose recipients to 1 132 201. The death toll went up to 4 047 after 56 new deaths were
recorded.
Critical Emerging Issues
1. Prioritisation and protection of Health Care Workers and women in the Health Sector
We highlight grave concerns for healthcare workers, especially those operating in the public sector, who are continuing
to report for duty are extremely difficult circumstances. Healthcare workers are continuing to raise their concerns
regarding poor workplace conditions which are causing critical frontline workers to lose confidence in the capacity of
their places of work to be safe environments. Furthermore, we amplify the realities of healthcare workers and their
implications on the quality of care being extended to patients in public hospitals. Healthcare workers continue to
experience, amongst other factors, on-going inconsistencies in accessing adequate PPE which create undue risk and
strain on frontline health care workers who predominantly are women.
We further continue to reiterate the low representation of women in policy-making positions in the healthcare sector
regards to the COVID-19 response architecture. We further raise concerns on staffing shortages, in non-metropolitan
provinces, created though the implications of healthcare workers who understandably have to go into quarantine and
self-isolation after exposure to the virus. These shortages directly compromise the levels and quality of service provision
to the health seeking public in particular have a direct negative impact on maternal and infant health care which is
already under strain. Underscoring, once more, that ultimately the negative fallout of COVID 19 management in the
healthcare sector has a direct correlation to women and girls’ lives and rights as they constitute the majority of the
health seeking public.
Outstanding issues
1. GBV and State Responsiveness to GBV during the lockdown
We continue to raise concerns over the increase in GBV cases in Zimbabwe. We highlight local evidence regarding the
rise Sexual Gender Based Violence (SGBV) is continues unabated and that access to services and modes of delivery of
services for victims/survivors of this type of violence are limited in real terms and are largely deprioritised within the
criminal justice system.
Further, our own experience in Zimbabwe, has shown that the lockdown has to an extent exacerbated known drivers of
intimate partner violence (IPV) and domestic violence such as increased stress at household level, as well as lockdowns
and limits on travel making it harder for women and girls to escape abuse and access support.
Reports also indicate that regular health, psychosocial and safe-house services are being overwhelmed, while traditional
walk-in services are becoming harder to access or are not operating.
Due to travel bans and other lockdown measures, access to critical services such as clinical management of rape,
healthcare services for survivors of violence in the home or family, sexual and reproductive healthcare, as well as mental
health and psychosocial support, have been interrupted. In certain instances, this has resulted in unplanned or forced
pregnancies, unsafe abortions, inadequate prenatal and post-natal care for pregnant and lactating women, increase in
STIs including HIV, self-harm and suicide.
Our monitoring continues to reveal that survivors are facing challenges accessing services at hospitals. We note that
these challenges are compounded against social factors that already militate against the reporting of gender-based
violence and in particular sexual gender-based violence.
This SITREP is developed by and through the collective network of organisational and individual members of the Women’s Coalition of Zimbabwe who are engaged at community levels to national levels in the COVID19 response in Zimbabwe