Government has expressed concern that the number of COVID-19 patients in critical condition and severely ill people needing admission have remained high.
Ministry of Health Permanent Secretary for Technical Services, Kennedy Malama said despite the country experiencing reduced numbers in new COVID-19 infections, deaths and hospitalizations, 57 patients are still in a critical condition and an average of 35 hospitalizations are being recorded per day.
“Today we reflect on the fact that as at 07:00hrs this morning, we still had 214 people with COVID-19 admitted countrywide with 154 of them on oxygen and 57 being critical.
Further in the past one week, we have seen on average 35 people admitted to hospitals on a daily basis countrywide reminding us that even with a 41percent reduction in admissions in the past two weeks, some people are still getting severe disease requiring admission an indication that COVID-19 is still with us,” he said.
And Dr. Malama disclosed that in the last 24: 00hours Zambia recorded a total of 183 new confirmed COVID-19 cases out of the 4,071 tests conducted, reflecting a positivity rate of 4.5 percent.
He further disclosed that the country has recorded a total 507 recoveries from both the COVID-19 facilities and home management, bringing the cumulative number of recoveries to 195,877 and recovery rate of 97 percent.
Dr. Malama further said the country recorded 8 new COVID-19 deaths, which brings the total number of deaths to 3,529 and that currently, the country has 2,855 active cases of COVID-19 under community management and in COVID-19 isolation centres.
He explained the breakdown of the cumulative vaccinations by vaccine type saying 307,725 Dose 1 vaccinations (300,826 AstraZeneca and 6,899 Sinopharm) and 214,425 fully vaccinated (105,812 Dose 2 AstraZeneca representing 35 percent of those that received dose 1), 102,277 Johnson and Johnson, and 6,336 Dose 2 Sinopharm representing 92 percent of those that received dose 1.
Dr. Malama further disclosed that the cumulative usage of the 977,600 vaccines that the country has received to date now stands at 522,150 doses, representing 53 percent usage and recorded a wastage rate of 4 percent.
He has reiterated his call to the public to ensure that they do not drop their guard as laxity to the public health guidance could put the country at risk of potential COVID-19 spikes and waves in the coming weeks and months.
