Murwira Dismisses NUST Student Testing Positive For COVID-19 Stories
Professor Amon Murwira has dismissed reports that a student at the National University of Science and Technology (NUST) tested positive for COVID-19, New Zimbabwe reports. While addressing parliament’s Higher and Tertiary Education Committee this week Murwira said no NUST student tested positive for COVID-19 and the stories circulation to that effect started before the NUST opened its doors to final year students.
Murwira responded to the allegations that they had kept the issue a secret and said:
NUST had no students at its university campus during the period alleged in the media. NUST opened for final year students on the 3rd of June, 2020 and to date, no student on campus has tested positive for Covid-19.
FeedbackAt no point had the university campus accommodated students prior to the 3rd of June, 2020. We are also guided by the Health Act. At that time, we took it as press report, by that time we were closed. So, what we are talking about is when we are open.
Statutory Instrument 110 of 2020 means that at no point did the Health ministry write a letter to us telling us which individuals had been affected
Murwira went on to say there was no point in hiding the matter and he addressed the issue with the journalists that asked the question and said:
I responded to the publication. Universities were closed. I was not too sure about how to answer the question from the journalist. We cannot spread rumours about Covid-19 and there is also the issue of privacy of people. One cannot just disclose my ailment. You might go to jail for that. There is an issue of morality.
A closed university with students who are said to be Covid-19 positive. Where are they? It was very difficult to make stories out of this kind of issue perpetuating a rumour. In order to respect people, we refrain from commenting further than just saying universities are closed. From now on, we will be able to tell because universities are now open.
As far as we are concerned, the NUST story was speculative. It was interesting but we thought we could answer it nicely by silence. Sometimes there is no need to cause panic. We were careful on commenting on issues that we have no evidence on.
More: New Zimbabwe
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