By Magreth Ruzvidzo, Zvishavane
With the COVID-19 pandemic now being perceived as a thing of the past, a lot of restrictive measures are being relaxed by the Ministry of Health and Child Care.
The ministry recently scrapped the mandatory wearing of face masks for those who are fully vaccinated, three shots. However, this waiver has created a loophole as most unvaccinated people are no longer wearing masks.
Hand sanitizing, social distancing and other COVID-19 precautionary measures are no longer being taken seriously as they used to before.
There has also been a notable gap in the flow of information to the general public on the COVID-19 pandemic and restrictive measures.
Women in marginalised areas to be specific, are at the receiving end of all this, considering their remote geographical areas where they rarely have access to the media.
Moving closer to our areas of concern, women in Zvishavane and Mberengwa in particular have shown limited understanding of the pandemic due to barriers in accessing health information.
These two areas are a hive of artisanal mining activities which see women spending much of their time in the extractive sector and less time on seeking information.
In a snap survey conducted to see whether these women really understand where they are now with the pandemic, a number of them showed that they were not sure of the current state of affairs but were focusing on their day to day routines.
They even seem not to care much about health information, as long as they go on with their daily trades and return home safe from physical harm. Issues of full vaccination appeared to be another issue where they still lack adequate knowledge on.
More so, besides YA FM radio station which has become as source of information and is also assuming the role of a community radio station in these and other surrounding areas, there is still less media coverage at national level.