21 Mar 2021

Although government is worried about ongoing COVID-19 infections and deaths, measures put in place to combat the pandemic have helped ease the disease burden on the country.

This was revealed by Vice President Slumber Tsogwane in Parliament on Thursday.

He said the country had managed to keep the fatality rate at less than one per cent of the population, and the infection rate consistently at less than five per cent.

He also said Botswana had conducted over 815 000 COVID-19 tests, which, at 369 per 1 000 people was a relatively high testing rate.

He said after COVID-19 was declared a global pandemic by the World Health Organisation (WHO) in early 2020, the country instituted measures to combat the spread of the disease.

He noted that a multi-sectoral COVID-19 task force was set up headed by Dr Kereng Masupu. He also noted that it contained members from the health sector and other stakeholders including Business Botswana, religious ministers and trade unionists.

Mr Tsogwane added that the key role of the task force was to monitor the disease and advise cabinet on measures that were necessary to combat the impact of the pandemic.

Additionally, he said the state of public emergency introduced on 2 April 2020 for an initial six month period and extended by a further six months had been part of the response, along with various interventions periodically reviewed.

The Vice President revealed that over P5.3 million had been paid as remuneration for the task force and that they continued to offer valuable work in the country’s effort to overcome the pandemic.

Mr Tsogwane noted that after the initial relative success in the national effort to flatten the curve of infection, there had been an exponential rise in COVID-19 cases and deaths from October 2020.

He added that from December, the detection of the South African variant of the virus and complacency by the public and in some instances frontline workers was identified as having contributed to the disease gaining momentum.

Mr Tsogwane said the country had adopted a multiple vaccine approach of ordering different brands of COVID-19 vaccines, and that the rollout would be designed to cover as many people as possible in the shortest time and to pursue equitable distribution to ensure all areas of the country were covered.

He said the elderly, frontline workers and vulnerable people would be given first priority.

Mr Tsogwane also disclosed that the first batch of vaccines procured by government would soon arrive and that both the WHO and Botswana Medical Regulatory Authority (BOMRA) had approved the vaccines recently donated from India, which were being prepared for rollout.

Mr Tsogwane was responding to a Leader of the House question time probe from Selibe Phikwe West Member of Parliament, Mr Dithapelo Keorapetse who had asked the Vice President to appraise the National Assembly on the country’s COVID-19 management.

Mr Keorapetse said the nation needed an update on what had been the country’s strategy to combat COVID-19, and if there was evidence that it was bearing fruit. He also wanted to know what had been the cost of maintaining the presidential task force. ends