President Kenyatta to assess the impact of relaxing Covid-19 precautionary measures

President Uhuru Kenyatta will on Monday chair an inter-governmental summit with governors. The agenda of the summit will be to assess the impact of relaxing the Covid-19 precautionary measures.

Since the economy was reopened on July 6, 2020, Covid-19 positive cases have been on the rise. The number of cases have more than doubled this month, as compared to June. If this trend continues, it could exhaust the health infrastructure available in the country.

In March, 59 people tested positive, meaning there was an average of two infections per day. In April, 337 people tested positive, which translates to 11 cases daily. The number sky rocketed in May when 1,566 tested positive, an average of 52 cases per day.

The number went even higher in June as the country recorded 4,404 positive cases, with an average of 147 infections per day. The cases have almost tripled in July as 11,237 positive cases have been recorded so far, an average of 432 infections daily.

The infection rate has also risen from 4 per cent in June to 10 per cent in July. Saturday’s infection rate was the highest (18.2 per cent) followed by Sunday’s (11.2 per cent). Meaning that in every 100 samples tested, 18 and 11 people tested positive for Covid-19.

On July 6, 2020, President Kenyatta shifted responsibility to Kenyans to ensure they prevent the spread of the infection as he reopened the economy. He warned that if the condition in the country worsened, we would retreat back to lockdown.

“Order to reopen is given conditionally if the situation deteriorates, we’ll revert to lockdown,” President Kenyatta said during his nation address.