Botswana has recently experienced a dramatic surge in the number of COVID-19 cases. Government communicated through the Presidential Task Force Team that there were new positive cases that were recorded in Mogoditshane, Oodi and Gaborone respectively.

On Wednesday evening, Minister of Health and Wellness, Dr Lemogang Kwape said the country recorded 30 new cases. It also emerged that a patient tested positive for COVID-19 at Bokamoso private hospital, and during contact tracing eleven people tested positive for the virus in Mogoditshane. According to an official communique from government, ten of these people were students.

Further, a Motswana who is an essential service provider tested positive for the deadly virus following a failure to quarantine upon arrival in the country. The country also recorded a new case caused by illegal border crossing by a citizen in Good Hope.

In respect of cases in Gaborone, a Motswana adult male with no travel history tested positive for the virus at Gaborone Private Hospital. Coordinator of the Presidential Task Force team, Dr Kereng Masupu said in a statement that these positive results mean that the country is likely to experience a surge in local COVID-19 cases.

Following extensive contact tracing to investigate COVID-19 cases that were recorded early this week, the task force team indicated that four educational institutions in Gaborone were exposed to Coronavirus. In a statement, the team designated that the Botswana Open University, Masa primary school, Bonnington Secondary School as well as Terrence private school had traces of the COVID-19 virus.

However, the health experts shared that officials have been deployed to carry out extensive assessments and course of action on the alleged cases at the four institutions. The group also advised parents, guardians and employees of these institutions to self-quarantine until they are cleared.

When addressing the nation on Wednesday, Deputy Coordinator of the task force team Professor Mosepele Mosepele said they have realized a worrying trend of a big surge in local spread of the virus, something that never happened before.

��We are experiencing a double increase in the number of cases in the country. Exactly two weeks ago, our COVID-19 cases were at seventy and double to one hundred and forty. This is a great concern, as the number of deaths have now reached two. In our statement released yesterday (Tuesday), we indicated that Mogoditshane has become a high risk zone as students and a teacher were infected in one school.

It is an extreme distress because these children live with parents, siblings and most of them use public transport, so chances that they have spread the virus are very high.�� His team is investigating the source of the recently recorded cases that include 22 children from one school in the capital Gaborone, he said. Mosepele stressed that it is a trial to contact trace these cases as registration in public transport is not done efficiently.

��Batswana has now diverted to disregarding some of the health protocols. It is difficult to do contact tracing as people who use public transport do not keep a register of the passengers. We have since observed that some people gather together in private and public places in large numbers, and to a certain extent, some host parties and social sessions. We do not put up with these occurrences and events, as the virus is now rapidly spreading.��

There was a holiday in the country two weeks back and prior to that local cases were reported to be at seventy. According to Director of health Services Dr Malaki Tshipayagae, the holiday might have contributed to the surge in positive cases as many cases of illegal gatherings were reported.

Botswana had been doing relatively well in managing the spread of the virus since the first case was recorded in March. The country has to date recorded two deaths from the virus and over 80 percent of cases had been those of foreign national who were on transit or truck drivers delivering essential goods.

Tshipayagae further expressed concerns about the dangers posed by people who cross borders at illegal points, especially to neighboring South Africa which has recorded over 400,000 cases and over 6,000 deaths. Botswana borders remain closed, except for essential travel that has to be authorized.

He said if the situation gets worse than it is, they will be forced to undertake other measures to prevent further spread of the virus, including a lockdown. The country was on lockdown for almost two months between April and May, but was slowly opened up to allow the economy to run.

Minister of Health and Wellness on Wednesday evening placed Gaborone under total lockdown for a period of two weeks following an “unexpected turn” in the number of new COVID-19 cases.
He made the announcement in a televised public address via a national television, Botswana Television, saying the city will go under lockdown from midnight. This follows an announcement of 30 new cases in the last 24 hours in a city of an estimated 231, 000 people, he said.

“During the course of this week, the disease has taken an unexpected turn. This now requires us to place the greater Gaborone COVID-19 zone under lockdown for a minimum period of two weeks,” said Kwape. Kwape said that a period of two weeks is enough to enable health authorities to contain the disease.

The third edition of lockdown in the Greater Gaborone zone sent anxious people racing for essentials as an unprecedented 14-day lockdown across the zone. Many shelves in the malls of Gaborone were stripped bare of staples as the country�s mostly affected zone lurched into a shutdown aimed at slowing the spread of the new coronavirus.

Some people were blocked at the Dibete checkpoint, trying to make way into another zone that is somehow free from the COVID-19 crisis. The law enforcement officers were called upon to settle the dust, and permit only essential service providers.