WCOZ Situation Report
ZIMBABWE LOCKDOWN: DAY 497

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8 August 2021

497 days of the COVID-19 Lockdown, and as of 7 th of August 2021, the Ministry of Health and Child Care
reported that, the cumulative number of COVID-19 cases had increased to 115 890 after 445 new cases were
recorded, all local cases. The highest case tally was recorded in Mashonaland East with 80 cases. The hotspots
updates are as follows; Mashonaland West Province – Hurungwe (4), Kariba (6), Makonde (4), Mashonaland
Central – Bindura (5), Mazowe (4). Mashonaland East – Marondera (30), Mutoko (12). Masvingo Province –
Chiredzi (25), Masvingo (11), Midland Province-Kwekwe (4), and Harare Province did not report at time of
publication.
We note that the Hospitalisation rate as at 15:00hrs on the 6 of August 2021 was 578 hospitalised cases: 55
New Admissions, 84 Asymptomatic cases, 382 mild-to-moderate cases, 96 severe cases and 16 cases in
Intensive Care Units. (St Anne’s and Montague did not report)
Active cases went down to 24 648. The total number of recoveries went up to 87 416 increasing by 890
recoveries. The recovery rate goes up marginally to 75% from 74%. A total of 33 809 people received their 1st
doses of vaccine. The cumulative number of the 1st dose vaccinated now stands at 1 851 407. A total of 35
589 recipients received their second dose bringing the cumulative number of 2nd dose recipients to 1 002 261.
The death toll went up to 3 826 after 21 new deaths were recorded.
We commend the communities of Zimbabwe and the Government for reaching the milestone of over 1 million
persons being fully vaccinated. We note the milestone with commendation and call for expedition to
vaccination of the remaining millions as well as accelerated measures to remove the barriers and burdens
characterised by the vaccination program thus far.

Critical Emerging Issues
1. Inconsistencies and Shortages of Vaccines
We continue to raise concern at the inconsistencies of vaccines and shortages of vaccines at various
vaccination centres. We are greatly concerned at continued reports of shortages of vaccines on the ground
whilst deliveries of vaccines at national have been recorded. We remind the government that the nation is still
not meeting the (50) fifty thousand vaccination per day target of the national vaccine program. We note the
vaccination programme is still under the vaccination blitz period and limited jabs are being administered on a
daily basis. We are concerned by growing community reports indicating inconsistencies of vaccine supplies.
Therefore, such inconsistencies are particularly undermining public efforts to secure vaccines as the number
of persons vaccinated daily is shifting, thereby completely eroding the booking systems at individual
vaccination centres. As such we continue to warn against ineffectiveness and inefficiencies in the vaccination
programme

• We urge Government to address logistical and distribution problems in the vaccination program.
• We call for main /large scale vaccination centres to hold adequate supplies of vaccines for
  consistencies in numbers of persons processed per day
• We recommend rapid deliveries supported by public announcement at community and rural health-
  care centres to ensure that numbers of vaccines available match numbers of persons being attended to
  at vaccination centres.

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.

• We therefore recommend prioritisation of access to GBV especially SGBV services in public hospitals, at
  provincial land district levels and at other local clinics.
• We urge Government agencies, Ministry of Health and Child Care, the Zimbabwe Republic Police Victim
  Friendly Unit (VFU), Social Welfare Department, and Civil Society Organisations to prioritise awareness
  raising and support services for survivors of Gender Based Violence especially in this time of COVID-19.
• We call upon Government to create and facilitate stronger solid community base for the welfare and
  protection of women and children, during emergency situations and recovery planning.
• We reinforce our recommendations to stakeholders, CSOs and Government of Zimbabwe to urgently
  implement a dedicated ring-fenced budget to increase domestic funding for national GBV response.
• We continue to call for expanded access to information on GBV services, including publicizing hotlines,
  tollfree lines and data base of local public health facilities where women and girls can receive
  compassionate and sensitive care. We recommend that this information be integrated into the
  national COVID-19 response messaging.
• We call for Government to protect the girl child from rape, sexual exploitation, child marriages and
  forced marriages during COVID-19.

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