National applause for coronavirus health workers – Chakwera

President Lazarus Chakwera has urged the nation to applaud health workers across the country  for  helping in the fight against coronavirus.

Chakwera said when he delivered his fifth National Address on the war on Covid-19 from Kamuzu Palace in Lilongwe Sunday evening, that frontline healthcare workers should be commended for their heroism putting their lives at risk during the coronavirus pandemic.

“I applaud our health workers for the gallant  fight they are putting up, and I call on all citizens to  treat every health care worker with respect and special  appreciation. In fact, whenever you meet a health care  worker, you should shower them with praise and thanks,  not insults and ingratitude,” said Chakwera.

He said the Presidential Task Force on Covid-19 will continue to  give the  health facilities as much support  “to  make the work of these heroes more meaningful.”

The President pointed out that  government has so far  increased the bed capacity in Covid treatment  centers to 1100, and have deployed 1200 new  healthcare workers to those centers.

“We have also dispatched additional protective gear for our frontline  workers, including 270 thousand face masks, 140 thousand N95 masks, over 7 thousand disposable gowns,  and 125 thousand bottles of hand sanitizer.

“This is all  on top of the work we are doing to strengthen the testing  capacity of our testing sites, to which we have just  distributed 20 thousand antigen rapid tests. To aide in  the diagnostics, the digital x-ray machines in Balaka and  at Mzuzu Central Hospital are back in use after the  repairs we effected,” said Chakwera.

He  further urged the citizenry to reduce their plight by adhering to strict Covid-19 preventive measures.

During the week under review, Malawi recorded 2 987 new infections out of 13 448 tests, representing a 22 percent positivity rate.

But Chakwera said while the 22 percent rate was lower than the previous week’s 29 percent, it was still higher than the zero to five percent rate Malawi is targeting.

He said this was the reason preventive measures, including closure of schools for a further two weeks, have been maintained.

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