A Bulawayo City Council official has urged the government to put the whole city under lockdown to curb the spread of the coronavirus.
In an interview with Chronicle on Wednesday, Bulawayo City Council director of health services Dr Edwin Sibanda also called for a ban on intercity travel which he said was driving rising COVID-19 cases being recorded in the province.
On Tuesday, Cabinet announced that Bulawayo’s Nkulumane, Emakhandeni and northern suburbs’ clinical districts have been placed under the localised lockdown.
Suburbs covered by the Nkulumane clinical district include Nkulumane, Pelandaba, Sizinda, Nketa, Emganwini and Barham Green.
Emakhandeni clinical district covers Cowdray Park, Njube, Luveve, Magwegwe suburbs, Pumula suburbs and Emakhandeni.
The northern suburbs district includes Mpopoma, Mzilikazi, Nguboyenja, Makokoba and the city centre.
Sibanda, however, argued that it will be difficult to implement a partial lockdown in Bulawayo. He said:
It will be very difficult to implement a partial lockdown. The best would be to put the whole of Bulawayo on lockdown and reduce intercity travel as we think it is contributing to the upsurge of our cases.
We need to know what to do and what not to hence, we await communication from Government to guide us as we implement the localised lockdown.
Normally after such an announcement a Statutory Instrument or an announcement is gazetted to spell out what should be done.
He urged members of the public to observe social distancing, hand sanitising and the proper wearing of masks covering both mouth and nose.
READ MORE: Zimbabwe Coronavirus/COVID-19 Update 23 June 2021
On Wednesday, 766 new coronavirus infections were recorded, the highest figure in several months. The country has so far recorded 43 480 including 37 477, and 1 692 deaths.