One new COVID-19 related death and 28 new cases as of today, Saturday Jan. 2

* Total number of active cases at 626 from 604 on Friday

* Of the active cases, 26 cases are currently admitted in hospitals

* School managers encouraged to give frequent health education sessions to learners on prevention

By Duncan Mlanjira

As of the past 24 hours of today, Saturday January 2, the country has registered 28 new COVID-19 cases of which one is a death and two are new recoveries.

This brings the total of active cases at 626 up from 38 that the country was managing by December, 2020. The close to 600 mark of the new cases have been recorded in one month alone.

Going into December, new cases that were being registered were minimal and COVID-19 related deaths remained stagnant but on December 8, there was one new death, no new cases and the active cases were at 38.

Then the new cases started rising — 8 on December 12, 3 the next day, 4 on 14th, 10 on 15th, 11 on 16th, 47 on 17th, 10 on 18th, 5 on 19th, 8 on 20th, 41 on 21st and 46 on 22nd and 13 on 23rd.

On Christmas Eve, there were 16, on Christmas Day 62, and 4 on Boxing Day, 11 on Saturday the 27th, 23 on Sunday, 11 on Monday and 23 on Tuesday.

The figures then soared to 83 on Wednesday to 112 on New Year’s Eve, bringing the total active cases to 505 going into 2021 and now at 626 after today’s 28 in high there were two recoveries.

Today’s situation report from co-chairperson of the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 says the new death is 30-year-old female from Karonga and of the active cases, 26 are currently admitted in hospitals — 12 at Queen Elizabeth Central, 10 at Kamuzu Central, two at Mzuzu Central, one at Balaka District and one at Zomba Central.

All the 28 new cases are locally transmitted infections — 25 from Blantyre District, and one each from Karonga, Mangochi and Zomba Districts.

Cumulatively, Malawi has recorded 6,712 cases including 192 deaths. Of these cases, 1,461 are imported infections and 5,251 are locally transmitted. Cumulatively, 5,710 cases have now recovered, 108 were lost to follow-up, and 76 are still being investigated to ascertain their outcome.

As leaders are now preparing to return to classes after the festive season, Dr. Phuka is asking School authorities to inculcate frequent health education sessions to the learners on the prevention COVID-19.

The school management is also being asked to monitor school attendance to track student and staff absence and compare against usual absenteeism patterns at the school.

They should also alert local health authorities about large increases in student and staff absenteeism due to respiratory illnesses.

Other preventive measures being encouraged are:

• Sick students, teachers and other staff should not come to school

• Schools should enforce regular hand washing with safe water and soap, alcohol rub/hand sanitizer

• Frequent cleaning and disinfection of the commonly touched surfaces and objects at the school

• Schools should provide water, sanitation and waste management facilities and follow environmental cleaning and decontamination procedures

• Schools should promote social distancing (a term applied to certain actions that are taken to slow down the spread of a highly contagious disease, including limiting large groups of people coming together)

• Staggering approach on classes could help to reduce overcrowding

• Proper wearing of mask and safe disposal

• Practicing cough and sneeze etiquette

On testing, in the past 24 hours, 259 COVID-19 tests were conducted, two of the new cases were confirmed by SARS-COV-2 Antigen Rapid Diagnostic test while the rest were through RT-PCR and cumulatively, 87,142 tests, have been conducted in the country so far.