BY PHUMELELE MKHONTA
MBABANE- Zero!
In the past month, the country has not recorded any COVID-19-related death. A study of the country’s COVID-19 statements by this reporter has revealed that the last recorded COVID-19 death was on August 25, 2022- which is a month ago.
Also, the study revealed that there was an average of 6.5 COVID-19 infections per week, meaning there is about one infection per day.
Since the emergence of COVID-19 in March 2020, the country has experienced escalating and deescalating COVID-19 deaths, however, it has not seen zero deaths in the past two years.
Efforts to reach the Minister of Health Lizzie Nkosi proved to be futile by the time this reports was being compiled at 14.30pm.
However, about three weeks ago, the minister announced that they were de-escalating COVID-19 response.
As part of the de-escalation towards COVID-19 response, the Ministry of Health has launched a weekly COVID-19 Statement.
Worth noting is that since the emergence of the first case of COVID-19 in the country, the said ministry has been publishing daily COVID-19 statements
The Ministry of Health published their first weekly COVID-19 statement yesterday. The last daily COVID-19 statement was published on September 3, 2022.
According to a statement sent out by Minister of Health Lizzie Nkosi on September 3, 2022 titled ‘De-escalation of the COVID-19 Response’, the ministry started de-escalating its response on September 1, 2022.
Nkosi said the country had been responding to the COVID-19 pandemic since March 2020, during which five waves had been experience.
“Government’s commitment at the highest level has seen the response measure improving with each wave, resulting in a much lower fifth wave that happened between April and June 2022.
“Currently, the new number cases and deaths due to COVID-19 remains low and vaccination rates continue to increase- with more the 43 per cent vaccinated,” said the minister.
She went on to say that as part of de-escalation of the response, the release of daily COVID-19 statements and situation reports would change from daily to weekly aggregated reports.
“It should be noted that this will only change if there is a surge in number of cases, whereby these will revert to daily reports,” said Nkosi.
She further thanked health workers who worked tirelessly during the COVID-19 pandemic, in uncertain and high-risk situations.
“It should be noted though that the COVID-19 pandemic is not yet over, as there are still be people diagnosed with COVID-19 as recently as last week and new variants are being discovered in other parts of the world. Eswatini is not safe from COVID-19, as long as the word is not safe,” said the minister.
