Mozambique: No Immediate Resumption of Football Championship
Maputo — Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi on Wednesday warned that the Covid-19 pandemic does not allow national sporting competitions, such as the Mozambican football championship, Mocambola, to resume in the near future.
Speaking at a meeting with the main Mozambican sports federations, Nyusi said the cold numbers of the Mozambican epidemic made it dangerous to resume the national competitions.
"It's true that there is a trend towards stabilisation", the President said, "but we must be cautious in the decisions we take. The disease spreads rapidly but disappears slowly. The training of the teams can start, but Mocambola can wait".
The Director of the National Health Institute (INS), Ilesh Jani, briefed the meeting on the current state of the pandemic in the county and the results of the Covid-19 tests held among the players of the 14 teams who compete in Mocambola.
12 per cent of the players tested were positive for the coronavirus that causes Covid-19. Jani regarded this as "a rate of acute infection".
Two weeks later the INS gave a second test to those who had tested negative in the first test. Five per cent of those who had been negative in the first test were now positive, even though the players had gone into isolation. Jani said this showed that "chains of transmission continued to occur inside the teams".
Jani also warned against any early easing of the restrictive measures imposed by the government to hold back the spread of Covid-19. Such relaxation could result in the eruption of a "third wave" of the coronavirus, with even more intensive transmission.
This fear is shared by one of the country's top epidemiologists, Avertino Barreto, who sits on the Technical and Scientific Commission advising the government on its response to Covid-19.
Interviewed by the independent television station STV, Barreto urged people not to become euphoric over the drop in new cases of the disease reported in the last few days.
"People are saying we're getting better - but I say, don't kid yourselves! Don't set off the fireworks, because in two or three months time, we will have a third wave, if we do not take precautions now", he warned.
Barreto said that, despite the 200,000 doses of vaccine that arrived last week (from the Chinese company Sinopharm), "if there is no strengthening of preventive measures, the situation could deteriorate".
There should be no relaxation, he insisted. Instead of lifting the curfew currently in force between 21.00 and 04.00 in Greater Maputo, it should be extended to other major cities, such as Nampula, Beira and Quelimane.
Barreto blamed the second coronavirus wave that Mozambique is currently fighting on the relaxation of the preventive measures during the festive season. He accused "the elites" of spreading the disease during their irresponsible partying over the Christmas and New Year period.
Barreto's enthusiasm for curfews is not necessarily shared by other members of the Technical and Scientific Commission. Indeed the imposition of the Maputo curfew was one of the reasons given by former Health Minister Helder Matins for resigning from the Commission last month.
This article originally appeared on AIM
Photo: Facebook