Zim records 7 new COVID-19 cases, all returnees from SA

Returning Zimbabweans have to spend three weeks in mandatory isolation, though 118 have escaped from various centres countrywide since the start of the lockdown on 30 March.

HARARE - Zimbabwe’s confirmed cases of coronavirus are still very low, but the country has just recorded seven new cases, all of them returnees from South Africa.

Returning Zimbabweans have to spend three weeks in mandatory isolation, though 118 have escaped from various centres countrywide since the start of the lockdown on 30 March.

The seven who tested positive for COVID-19 are currently in quarantine at the Beitbridge Isolation Centre.

They take the figure of Zimbabwe’s confirmed cases to 63.

The low rate of transmission is being seen by the authorities as a sign that lockdown measures, introduced 59 days ago, are working.

But less than 40,000 tests have been done.

There are also concerns that many could be sneaking back into the country across Zimbabwe’s porous borders without passing through isolation centres, and the police are urging Zimbabweans to report returnees who haven’t been through quarantine.