Former Akin Gump Litigation Co-Chair Joins Lateral Link

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Lateral Link, a prominent legal recruiting firm with offices across the United States and Asia, announced today that David Comerford, the former Co-Chair of Akin Gump’s Litigation Practice, has joined as a Senior Director in their Philadelphia and Washington D.C. offices. His focus will be on placing partners and groups into top law firms throughout the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic.

Per Comerford, “Lateral Link offered an efficient, collaborative, nationwide platform that embraces the realities of today’s legal market.  Without artificial geographic or practice limits, Lateral Link takes a practical approach that maximizes recruiters’ assets to the mutual benefit of lateral attorneys and law firms. In addition, the people I met at Lateral Link are down to earth, have practiced at the highest level with some of the biggest and most prestigious law firms in the world, and are 100% committed to providing first rate service.”

Comerford holds a B.A. in History from the University of Virginia and a J.D. with honors from Rutgers University School of Law. During his 22 years at Akin, he held many leadership roles, including membership on the Partner Admissions Committee, Co-Chair of the Litigation Group, and Partner-in-Charge of the Philadelphia office. In those positions, Comerford vetted hundreds of partner candidates, analyzed strategic and firm culture fit, and helped integrate lateral partners into the firm. “I was fortunate to contribute to the continued evolution of a great firm in many ways, including through organic and lateral growth. For my next act, I wanted something that similarly would bring the satisfaction that comes from helping people build something, while leveraging my assets of experience, market knowledge, network, and judgment,” he noted.

Ryan Belville, Co-Managing Principal of Lateral Link, added, “David is a fantastic addition to the team. His background, appetite to build, and breadth of network all sync perfectly with our growth plans in the Northeast.”

As a high stakes Commercial Litigator, Comerford helped businesses and individuals solve complex problems and protect their brands and assets, for which he received recognition for by The Best Lawyers in America for Commercial Litigation, Chambers USA: America’s Leading Lawyers for Business for Securities Litigation, Pennsylvania Super Lawyers and the Irish Legal 100.

Comerford brings with him to Lateral Link 28 years of Biglaw experience and trusted judgment to help partners, associates and law firms find their next great opportunity.

About Lateral Link

The major Am Law 200 and specialty firms partner with Lateral Link as their go-to legal recruiter. With offices in over a dozen cities across the United States and Asia, Lateral Link’s established relationships and reputation position the firm to attract and deliver the best legal talent. Over the past 14 years, Lateral Link has completed thousands of successful placements as a best-in-class legal recruitment agency.

Lateral Link is one of the top-rated international legal recruiting firms. With over 14 offices world-wide, Lateral Link specializes in placing attorneys at the most prestigious law firms and companies in the world. Managed by former practicing attorneys from top law schools, Lateral Link has a tradition of hiring lawyers to execute the lateral leaps of practicing attorneys. Click here to find out more about us.

So I Worked, Because I’m A Mom: A Government Lawyer’s Experiences After Having A Child

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Ed. note: This is the latest installment in a series of posts on motherhood in the legal profession, in partnership with our friends at MothersEsquire. Welcome Josephine M. Bahn to our pages.

“Well, it’s not like you’re going to have another one right away or anything, right?”

Oof. My first day back from maternity leave was off to a rougher start than I imagined. I came back to work after having my daughter, a month early, after a little more than eight weeks off. I didn’t have any more sick or annual leave to burn through, and the federal government didn’t have a paid family leave policy at the time. I know what you’re thinking: “Wow! 1999 must have been a crazy time!!!” But it wasn’t 1999 — it was 2019.

I’m married to an attorney. Same number of years in practice, same involvement in “extracurricular activities” outside of work, pretty much on par with me in all things, except one: he is a he, and I am a she. That matters.

My husband was out of work for one month, but when he was out, he was offered the opportunity to work “part time,” to minimize the hit on his leave. When he had finally exhausted that leave after one month, he was welcomed back with open arms. “Can we see pictures of Baby Ruth?” “How are you feeling?” “Are you getting enough sleep?” Honestly, it was so supportive, I was really excited for him; his office and coworkers made his transition back something to envy. He got put back on all his cases, given new work assignments that were even a stretch for his skills, and they asked him to attend new training opportunities to become closer to a subject matter expert in an area in their office. Too cool, right?

Here was my experience.

I came back early because I was out of paid leave, but I was afraid to also take unpaid. I know that I’m fortunate that I had a federal job — one that provided any paid leave. But I was still a conditional hire, within the first two years of employment — and I was up for a permanent position at a higher grade, and I just couldn’t risk it.

So I worked.

It wasn’t just my day job that seemed to have these issues.

I’m running for the American Bar Association Young Lawyer’s Division Secretary position in a contested election this year. The person becomes Chair of the YLD after three years — I’d be representing over 100,000 young lawyer members. The campaign is long — a year to be exact. When I announced that I was running, I went to an event at the Annual Meeting with my daughter strapped to me in a front carrier. While at an event, a senior division leader said in front of a crowd that people are going to constantly not see past me having a child, that I would be perceived as unfit for the job because I had a kid. I mentioned earlier that my husband’s pretty involved in this group — and that leader said my husband wouldn’t face the same critiques, because “it’s different for men and women.”

So I worked.

I worked when my daughter couldn’t sleep through the night, drinking Diet Coke by the case for the caffeine. I worked when I felt like the assignments I was getting weren’t sufficient for the job I had taken. I pitched — no, begged — my boss to get on cases that I felt would advance my career. I worked harder outside of work through my bar association work, volunteering at the nonprofit board I sat on, and then I took on more pro bono cases. I worked through months of postpartum depression that I refused to acknowledge because I was afraid of the stigma of mental illness and how I would be perceived.

So I worked.

I write all of this knowing that so many parents — moms and dads — do the same. There are so many sleepless nights that parents have, so much work to do, and so much time they feel like they aren’t giving enough to their child.   But nonetheless, it is different for women.

Another example: last week, I had to get a new phone for work — everyone was getting them. A colleague of mine from another group happened to be there at the same time. I was lamenting to our IT staff that my new phone wasn’t working and he said, “It’s probably not working because you’re getting fired for taking too much maternity leave.”

Too much maternity leave.

It’s comments like these, the meetings and conference calls that folks schedule after my work hours when they know I do afternoon pickup, and the inevitable, “Well, can you really travel to that city for this case because ya know, you’re a mom.”

Because you’re a mom.

My husband doesn’t deal with that. He’s a pretty awesome #girldad, and I’m lucky to have him as a partner, but no one batted an eye when he went to LA for a week for work. People understand his days off, sick leave, and working hours, and don’t schedule meetings during those times.

Maybe it’s because he’s a dad, and I’m a mom, but it’s still not equal. So, I’ve spent the past 10 months doing things to change the conversation, improve my work and outside activities, and continue to be the best mom I can be for my insanely smart and independent child.

We bring Ruth to everything — meetings, conferences, dinners. She’s there. When we can’t bring her, our family team helps us out tremendously. I know I’m really lucky to have our team — many parents simply don’t.

I mark off time that is exclusively for her — Mama-Ru days. I don’t check email, texts, and I don’t take calls. We just hang out and do things she enjoys. I carve out that time, so I don’t beat myself up when I miss bedtime for the third time this week. I also put up boundaries where I can. I’m much more deliberate with my time — I only say yes to things that will advance my career or goals and that I am willing to decrease my time with Ruth for. I advocate for myself at work thinking, “What example should I be showing for her?” I’m better because I have a baby, not worse.

Oh, and that election I mentioned — I’ve reached out to folks across the country. I’m upfront about having a baby, and I talk about the team that helps me through. I talk about what I want to do if I win, and how I plan to tackle young lawyer-related issues like ballooning student debt, access to the profession, equality in the profession, etc. The one thing that never comes up on these calls from the person on the other end? That I’m a mom.

You can do it, just plan, have patience, and don’t be afraid to bring your kid around every now and again.

Because you’re a mom, or a dad, or a caregiver, or the best Pop Pop ever.

If you do good work, folks recognize it.

Because I’m a mom and a lawyer and a bunch of other things, but being a mom, well, that is okay with me.

Earlier: Mothers At Law: Achieving Meaningful Success In The Legal Profession

Josephine (Jo) M. Bahn is a federal government attorney licensed to practice in New York and the District of Columbia.  She practices banking law, primarily in consumer and fraud litigation. She is currently a candidate for ABA YLD Secretary in a race against Jerome Crawford of Detroit, MI, and the slate of candidates closes at the Midyear Meeting. For more information on Ms. Bahn see: joforyld.com.

Asking For Sex In Exchange For Legal Services Is Apparently Frowned Upon Now!

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Did you realize that you can’t ask your clients to sleep with you in exchange for legal services? It’s strange but true! Be sure to brush up on this before your next big case or else you could end up with egg on your face.

Or, you know, in jail. Which is what happened to 29-year-old Miami attorney Juan Mercado, who was arrested on bribery charges for allegedly telling a woman that he could make her pending criminal case “go away” in exchange for sex.

In fairness to Mercado, that is something he actually might have been able to do because he wasn’t some random attorney looking to take on the woman’s case, but an assistant state attorney in Charlotte County. While he’s since moved on to set up his own criminal defense practice, investigators say that when he was still working for the government, Mercado abused his position to get access to the defendant in this case:

His arrest followed an investigation by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, which alleged Mercado had sex with a defendant facing domestic battery charges.

Mercado was not assigned to the woman’s case, but accessed her records and gave her advice, according to the FDLE.

Some of you puritans out there will cluck your tongues over this fee arrangement, but when you think about it, Biglaw firms have been fucking their clients for years.

Sex in Exchange for Legal Services? Miami Lawyer Arrested on Bribery Charges [Daily Business Review]

More Biglaw Firms Encourage Associates And Staff To Use Gender Pronouns In Email Signatures

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Biglaw firms across the globe continue to promote diversity and inclusion among their ranks by instituting transgender-friendly workplace policies. To that end, many firms have decided to embrace the full gender spectrum by encouraging any and all employees — not just their transgender, genderqueer, and nonbinary employees — to use gender pronouns in their email signatures.

Earlier this month, we wrote about Sidley Austin’s heartening step forward when it offered firmwide approval and support for employees to add gender pronouns to their signature blocks. As it turns out, many other firms have done the exact same thing. Here are just a few of them, plus interesting facts about each firm’s steps toward inclusivity if included by tipsters:

  • Cleary Gottlieb
  • Cozen O’Connor
  • Jenner & Block
  • Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton
  • Littler (gender-based pronouns have been eliminated from the firm’s HR materials and employees can choose a nonbinary identifier in the firm’s internal HR system)
  • Mayer Brown
  • Paul Weiss (chairman Brad Karp and deputy chair Valerie Radwaner both added pronouns to their signatures last year)
  • Ropes & Gray (the firm has dedicated thousands of hours of pro bono work to helping people update name and gender markers on identity documents)

If you’re still not sure why your firm should support and encourage gender pronouns in email signatures, here’s a powerful message on solidarity from a source at Sidley:

I know a lot of people don’t necessarily understand why this is important, or think that because they don’t “need” to provide their pronouns they shouldn’t bother adding the pronouns themselves. However, it can be incredibly isolating being the “only” person who needs/wants to self-identify pronouns, so there is power and support in having others do it first/with you. It’s such a small and easy thing that we can all do to be more inclusive and welcoming, and it can make a huge impact on people feeling marginalized or unseen.

This is a remarkably simple move, a “small” action indeed, but one that goes pretty far in setting the tone of inclusion at a law firm. Does your firm support the usage of gender pronouns in email signatures? Please let us know.

Earlier: Biglaw Firm Encourages Associates & Staff To Use Gender Pronouns In Email Signatures

Staci ZaretskyStaci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.

New Livelihoods in Zimbabwean Communities Help Reduce Land Degradation, Poaching

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STORY HIGHLIGHTS

  • A land-use project has created alternative livelihoods to community farmers to reduce pressure on the ecosystem and increase community appreciation of conservation
  • Increased land productivity is contributing to food security
  • Key lessons learned in land restoration are now part of a toolkit that can help the rest of the country

HARARE – A thriving community garden has become a hive of activity in Chireya, a community that has stopped stream bank cultivation to stem land degradation and preserve its environment.

For years, the agricultural community had been relying on stream bank cultivation—the practice of growing or cultivating crops near a wetland, stream or river— to grow crops and feed their families. But the practice is one of the main causes of degradation of the river ecosystems in the country.

To help stop degradation along the Hwange-Sanyati Corridor, 120 families voluntarily gave up the practice to participate in the community garden project. Largely occupied by women, each family has a 250m2 plot, where they are currently growing vegetables. The garden has been contributing to food security and been a great relief to participating households.

“We no longer engage in stream bank cultivation which was seasonal anyway, whereas the garden keeps us busy daily,” said Sarudzai Mapfurambanje, a 27-year old community resident and mother of two. “We can feed our families and access drinking water from the garden.”

The community garden is part of the Hwange Sanyathi Biological Corridor Project (HSBC), which sought to help communities facing land degradation and low productivity in three districts, as well as three protected areas including a national park and two forests.

Through community discussions and consultations, residents shared their concerns about gullies, formed by running water and eroding soil, that were threatening a maternity ward and business district. To stop the development of large, gaping holes, stream bank cultivation had to be discouraged, and new job opportunities developed to reduce pressure on the ecosystem and increase community appreciation of conservation.

In addition to the garden, the project features the Katamba brick molding activity designed to reduce a key driver of land degradation; clay extraction to make bricks. Targeting young people, the new process replaces the base input for such production with river sand. The sand is sourced from the nearby Ume river which is silted by sand. The location for extraction is guided by the national Environmental Management Agency. The molded bricks are sun-dried to reduce deforestation.

As the community faces a continued threat of erosion, community vigilance and readiness to mobilize is required to combat new ravines. Thus; strong environmental committees exist in Chireya to provide for continued community mobilization for gulley maintenance. To also ensure sustainability of the garden, propositions have been advanced to use member contributions and mainstream the project investments into local government structures. Additionally, the project has codified the land restoration key lessons into a toolkit for sodic soils, with direct applicability to other parts of the country as over 15% of Zimbabwe is sodic soils.

“By ditching stream bank cultivation and working together in the community gardens and brick molding among other interventions, we have a renewed sense of community and will do whatever it takes to preserve our environment,” said Chief Chireya of Gokwe North. “As the leadership, I am committed to continuous education and awareness raising on the danger of stream bank cultivation so that even in rainy seasons, communities remain compliant.”

The HSBC project has not only benefitted Chireya but the various communities in the Hwange-Sanyathi Corridor through different interventions to address varying and urgent needs. In the Sidinda Ward of Hwange Rural District Council, buffalo have been restocked to improve livelihoods through the setting up of a conservancy. The conservancy is a step to stem poaching.

However, as the country has been experiencing a drought, the buffalo population has declined significantly, hampering the design of the planned Sidinda Conservancy. To stem buffalo deaths, community members volunteered to harvest grass further outside the conservancy for processing into hay.

Through the project, the business plan for Sidinda Community Conservancy has been completed and community representatives have expressed strong support for project investments.

“Years back we had lots of different animals and when we realized that they were getting fewer we took on the suggestion to restock and we are now looking forward to a change in livelihoods not only in Sidinda Ward but the whole Hwange District,” said Sinikiwe Nyathi, Sidinda Ward Councilor who is also the chairperson of the Hwange District. “We are aware that the project will take time, but we are fully onboard, and looking to our partners for further assistance.”

The post New Livelihoods in Zimbabwean Communities Help Reduce Land Degradation, Poaching appeared first on The Zimbabwean.

Enhancing capacity of Zimbabwe’s Health System to respond to climate change induced drought

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Malnutrition is both caused and exacerbated by drought, especially if a population is dependent on locally-grown food that is in reduced supply during a drought. Acute malnutrition is the stereotypical presentation of decreased food security leading to mass hunger, starvation and famine. A decreased intake of calories and nutrients results in wasting, with loss of body fat, muscle bulk and body weight. The effect of a longer-term reduced intake of protein, fat, carbohydrates and micronutrients leaves young children stunted and compromises cognitive development.

Generally, malnutrition is managed by giving supplementary foods high in energy and nutrients and vitamin and mineral supplements.

To assess the health system’s readiness to deal with climate change induced drought and subsequent malnutrition, the Ministry of Health and Child Care (MOHCC) with support from UNICEF and WHO carried out a rapid assessment of health facilities in 19 sampled high global acute malnutrition and high food insecurity districts from the ten provinces of Zimbabwe to ascertain the preparedness of the facilities to respond to drought effects. The assessment also assessed the capacity of health workers to manage acute malnutrition and to provide Infant and Young Child Feeding (IYCF) package. The WHO recommended checklist (Multi-Cluster/Sector Initial Rapid Assessment (MIRA) was adapted and administered as the assessment tool.

The assessment revealed that 94% of the districts had less than 50% health workers trained to manage acute malnutrition and that 63% of the districts had no trained staff in baby friendly hospital initiative (BFHI), and that 34% of the health facilities were not admitting according to the integrated management of acute malnutrition (IMAM) protocol. Infant and young child feeding in emergencies (IYCF-e) support to parents and care givers of children below the age of two years is compromised due to incapacitation of health care workers. 12 districts (63%) had none of their staff trained in infant and young child feeding (IYCF).

Regarding supplies and logistics, Manicaland province had 80% of the its facilities short of RUFT considering that this is the province with the two districts affected by cyclone Idai. About 80% of the provinces had no resomal stocks, 60% did not have combined mineral and vitamin mix stocks, 30% did not have ready to use supplementary food stocks, and 20% had no micronutrient powder stocks. Almost all health facilities were not adequately stocked with growth monitoring cards. In this assessment 20 pellagra cases in the health facilities during the drought period were observed, and most of the interviewed health care workers had poor knowledge on pellagra. This picture projects a worsening situation as the drought progresses.

Based on the above findings, MOHCC, UNICEF and WHO recommended the procurement of life –saving therapeutic and supplementary foods, standard anthropometric equipment and growth monitoring cards. Another recommendation was that health care workers should be capacitated on managing acute malnutrition, Infant and Young Child Feeding (IYCF) and IDSR; and that strong surveillance systems that help to identify existing and emerging malnutrition cases like Pellagra should be put in place. They also recommend that food fortification be strengthened. Regarding the pellagra cases, a recommendation was made to establish the actual burden of pellagra and respond according to the IDSR guidelines.

The post Enhancing capacity of Zimbabwe’s Health System to respond to climate change induced drought appeared first on The Zimbabwean.

Beyond thirst: Inside Zimbabwe’s water crisis

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In Zimbabwe, the task of gathering enough clean water to drink, cook and wash is consuming many people’s lives, with women and children bearing the brunt of the shortage [File: Chris Muronzi/Al Jazeera]

Chitungwiza, Zimbabwe – Ten people push down on a metal pump, drawing up groundwater from a crudely dug borehole in Chitungwiza, about 30km (18.6 miles) southeast of the heart of Zimbabwe‘s capital Harare.

The water pours into a plastic bucket and another empty container rotates in, fed by a queue of more than three dozen people waiting their turn to collect the life-sustaining liquid.

Among those waiting is 34-year-old mother of two Florence Kaseke. “I woke up at 4am this morning and joined the queue to get water,” she tells Al Jazeera.

“I then went home around 6am to prepare for my children so they could go to school. And I came back here at 8am to check how the queue was doing and then went home again for an hour or so,” she says.

Kaseke reckons she’ll get water by 9pm, but people have been known to spend all night waiting their turn.

Her experience is not uncommon in Zimbabwe, where the task of gathering water has completely consumed many people’s lives.

“Most of the time, we are here at the boreholes,” 75-year-old Sarah Zanga tells Al Jazeera. “I am too old for this.”

Water is essential to life, but in Zimbabwe, access to it has grown precarious. The Chitungwiza City Council has been failing to provide water consistently to the area’s crowded townships for over eight months.

“The water situation is bad,” 21-year-old Chitungwiza resident Fortune Magaya tells Al Jazeera. “Water only comes on Saturdays for a few hours. But not at all times. On some Saturdays, it doesn’t come.”

When it does flow, people stockpile as much as they can. If they run out while the taps are running dry – which is often the case – residents face a difficult choice. They must either queue at a borehole, or buy water at extortionate prices.

Magaya says he buys around 40 litres (11 gallons) of water a week for himself and his family, but only for cooking. The cost, he says, varies according to supply.

Some of the area’s more affluent residents have hired private drilling companies to sink boreholes on their properties to pump and sell water to their less-fortunate neighbours.

A recent report by Zimbabwe Peace Project recorded a truck in Chitungwize selling buckets of water for 1.50 Zimbabwean dollars each ($0.0625).

But since most of the boreholes use electric pumps, prices can double when the power is out. Blackouts can last up to 18 hours a day in some parts of Zimbabwe.

“It pains us to buy water the way we do now,” says Magaya.

Zimbabwe water 3
In Zimbabwe, citizens are scrambling to get enough clean water to drink, prepare meals and attend to basic hygiene [File: Chris Muronzi/Al Jazeera]

Extortion and exploitation

Increasing water scarcity is compounding the myriad hardships with which Zimbabweans are wrestling – including a foundering economy, soaring inflation, growing food insecurity, and a deeply compromised public healthcare system.

Zimbabwe’s water crisis is rooted in a severe drought that began in 2018. Though some parts of the country experienced a brief respite in January with sporadic rains, more earth-parching weather is forecast for this year.

Access to clean, potable, affordable water is essential for maintaining individual and public health. When people face barriers to obtaining safe water, it can have negative economic and social effects as well.

In Zimbabwe, citizens are scrambling to get enough clean water to drink, prepare meals and attend to basic hygiene.

In 2008, Chitungwiza was the epicentre of a nationwide cholera epidemic linked to poor water sanitation. Now, residents are fearful of the life-threatening conditions the current water crisis could create.

“At each house, there is an average of four or five families living together and sharing a single toilet. Each of the families have kids of their own. Without water, there is risk of diseases such as cholera,” Kaseke says.

Disease is not the only worry. Women and children are bearing the brunt of the crisis.

“The kids are not studying at all as they are now spending most of their free time in water queues at the boreholes,” Anna Mamombe, a 45-year-old homemaker, tells Al Jazeera.

There are also concerns over how the water crisis is affecting the social fabric of the area.

“Married women are spending the night at boreholes and they have been many fights between couples with others accusing their partners of cheating on them and using the water crisis as an excuse to sleep out,” Kaseke tells Al Jazeera.

“The young girls are also spending nights here with boys their age and some older. And it’s dark out here. They end up doing crazy things, and that is also worrying for parents.”

Squandered opportunities

It’s not just Chitungwiza that is at the sharp end of the water crisis. In Harare, one million people are without running water. Two of the capital’s four reservoirs are empty. And one of the city’s main water treatment plants – Morton Jaffrey – has been idle since September, when it ran out of key chemicals.

Even before the drought struck, water shortages were common in Zimbabwe’s capital due to decrepit infrastructure and chemical shortages.

Relief beckoned five years ago, after the Export-Import Bank of China extended a $144m loan facility to the Zimbabwean government to modernise Harare’s water and sewer works.

But after $72m was spent with little to show for it, and with reports of corruption swirling, the rest of the loan was held back by the Chinese.

Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa reportedly appealed to his Chinese counterpart President Xi Jinping to unlock the rest of the funding, but Harare government spokesperson Micheal Chideme tells Al Jazeera that the rest of the loan has yet to materialise.

In September, Harare Deputy Mayor Enock Mupamawonde called on the government to declare the water shortage a national disaster, saying the local authority needs at least 40 million Zimbabwean dollars ($2m) a month for water chemicals. The municipality takes in only 15 million Zimbabwean dollars in revenue each month.

And until the crisis abates, people like septuagenarian Sarah Zanga have little choice but to queue for water at a community borehole.

“I have four buckets and I have been here for an hour,” she said.  “I don’t have the strength to carry these, so my grandchildren will carry them after they pump.”

The post Beyond thirst: Inside Zimbabwe’s water crisis appeared first on The Zimbabwean.

Hedge Fund Finds Hollywood Success… In South Korea

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‘Why is Zimbabwe still allowing Chinese visitors in the country’ – The Zimbabwean

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Opposition MDC Alliance MPs led by MDC Parliamentary Chief Whip, Prosper Mutseyami outside parliament following the chaos that marked police units forcibly evicting them from the House after they refused to stand up for President Emmerson Mnangagwa

Speaking in parliament on Tuesday Mutseyami asked Health Minister Obadiah Moyo on government’s preparedness to deal with the deadly virus.

“We want an update on challenges and preparedness on coronavirus. We understand that other countries such as Russia and Australia have closed their borders to Chinese nationals to avoid the spread of the virus.

“Why is Zimbabwe still allowing Chinese visitors in the country? This issue needs to be addressed as soon as yesterday. So can we have a ministerial statement on that,” asked Mutseyami.

On his microblogging Twitter handle, Hopewell Chin’ono yesterday urged government to take coronavirus seriously and to not only rely on travel advice from China but to close borders for its visitors.

“Whilst the rest of the world understands the seriousness of the CORONA Virus. The Zimbabwean Government is relying on travel advice from the Chinese Embassy, and not providing State quarantine or stopping travel from China! This is putting the whole country into deathly danger!” Chin’ono said.

Speaking at the post cabinet briefing, Information and Publicity minister Monica Mutsvangwa said government has medicines for the treatment of the virus.

Mutsvangwa dismissed the suggestion of closing borders for visitors from China, citing they would be subjected to self quarantine for a 21-day.

“The Government of Zimbabwe has agreed with the Government of the Republic of China that these travellers be subjected to self quarantine for a 21-day surveillance period, in order to ensure early detection of symptoms.

“The main treatment centres will be situated at the Wilkins Infectious Diseases Hospital for the northern part of the country and Thorngrove Infectious Diseases Hospital for the Southern region.

“The National Microbiology Reference Laboratory (NMRL) was assessed and found to have good testing capacity and is adequately equipped. Medicines for treatment have been identified locally and will be strategically positioned at the treatment centres,” Mutsvangwa said.

On Wednesday, the World Health Organization (WHO) officially re-named the disease from coronavirus to COVID-19.

“COVID-19 stands for coronavirus disease in 2019,” said Soumya Swaminathan chief scientist at the World Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland, at a press briefing. Nehanda Radio

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