Highs and lows as Kenya enters crucial third month

Today, Kenya enters a crucial third month in the fight against the coronavirus. By now, abnormal has become our new normal, with schools closed, a curfew imposed and restriction of movement in place.

In its third month of infections, the United States had 546 confirmed cases and 22 deaths. The numbers have spiked to more than a million cases and 81,378 deaths. This is especially worrying for Kenya because in the past week alone, Kenya’s confirmed cases have tripled and the deaths have increased fourfold.

It will be interesting to see what new measures the Kenyan government will introduce and what strategies it will implement to fight the virus, which has now firmly established itself at the community level.

COMMUNITY SPREAD

At the start, the government seemed to have control of the virus, especially with people who came in to the country being quarantined.

It took a month of reporting cases identified from quarantine facilities before Kenya announced its first few cases of community spread. These are people who neither travelled nor had exposure with a coronavirus patient

On April 23, the Health ministry finally raised the alarm over the surge in community transmission as the number of coronavirus cases rose to 320. Out of the 17 people who tested positive on this day, 15 had no history of travel or interaction with a coronavirus patient.

Despite the ministry mapping 14 counties as high risk, the country has reported 700 cases in 19 counties.

TESTING PROBLEM

From the start, Kenya has had a monumental problem with testing. The country has tested 32,938 people today, compared to South Africa’s 356,067. Testing not only helps understand the magnitude of the problem, but it is also very crucial for deciding measures to take.

Despite having 15 operational laboratories, Kenya has not achieved its ambitious target of testing a quarter million people by the end of July.

To reach one percent of the Kenya’s population, the Health ministry would have to test 476,000 people.

Delayed widespread testing is a cause for concern for many, especially since doing it can provide a better picture of the spread of the virus.

PROTECTIVE EQUIPMENT

A serious setback in Kenya’s war against the coronavirus is in the provision of personal protective equipment. The Health ministry says it has distributed and delivered 3,682 PPE. However, the doctor’s unions and associations say the country needs: 8.2 million surgical masks and 4.1 million in equal quantity of N-95 masks, disposable gowns, caps, hazmat suits, shoe covers, face shields and 92,000 goggles.

Health workers have raised concerns over the shortage of protective gear and they have given a strike notice because of this and other reasons.

For President Uhuru Kenyatta, the pandemic is a delicate balancing act of containment measures while ensuring that Kenyans can put food on their tables. One such move is the reopening of restaurants.

STIMULUS PACKAGE

To mitigate the economic effects of the pandemic, he announced a Covid-19 stimulus package, creating a Sh172 billion hole in Kenya's revenue. The package includes the lowering of value added tax, removal of income tax for those earning Sh28,000 and less, and provision of funds for orphans, the elderly and vulnerable families.

The President announced pay cuts for himself, Deputy President William Ruto, Cabinet Secretaries and Chief Administrative Secretaries.

As we move to the third month, all eyes are on the President, who will either escalate of deescalate the measures to stop the spread of the coronavirus.