On 12 January 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed that a novel coronavirus was the cause of a respiratory illness in a cluster of people in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China, which was reported to the WHO on 31 December 2019.
[8][6] Model-based simulations for Malawi indicate that the 95% confidence interval for the time-varying reproduction number R t was stable below 1.0 from July to September 2020 but exceeded 1.0 the last three months of 2020.
The Treasury has been called upon to reduce the salaries of the President, Cabinet and deputy ministers by 10 percent for three months in order to redirect the resources to fight against the coronavirus.
[37] However, on 17 April, the Malawi High Court temporarily barred the government from implementing the 21-day lockdown following a petition by the Human Rights Defenders Coalition.
[38] The argument made by the Human Rights Defenders Coalition was that more consultation was needed to prevent harm to the poorest and most vulnerable of society.