President Kenyatta to review impact of easing COVID-19 containment measures

The spread of the COVID-19 pandemic has been on a steady rise since President Uhuru Kenyatta relaxed some of the  containment measures early in the month.

The positivity rate has more than doubled in less than a month with Health officials warning that the trend can overrun the available Health infrastructure.

The President is expected to chair a summit with Governors on Monday to assess the impact of easing the containment measures in favour of a hurting economy.

In March, the first month, there was a total of 59 positive cases with a daily average of three infections. April recorded 337 an average of 11 cases per day, In May the figures surged to 1,566 an average of 50 a day.

In June the country posted a total of 4,404 an equivalent of 147 new infections a day and so far this July 11,237 are the month’s tally an average of 432 new infections a day — this is is more than triple the numbers recorded in June after relaxation of a raft of containment measures.

At the same time, the infection and positivity rate shot up from 4% in the month of June to 10% in July with Sunday’s rate standing at 11.2 while Saturday posted a positivity rate of 18.2% meaning in every 100 samples tested on Saturday there were 18 people who turned out positive.

On the 6th of July out of 2,132 samples tested 181 people turned positive raising the country’s to 8,067 at the time. On Sunday, 20 days since then, the figure is different. It has multiplied by five times with a tally of new infections hitting 960 effectively making July Kenya’s worst month so far.

President Uhuru Kenyatta is expected to hold what has been termed as an extra ordinary summit which is likely to influence decisions on what next for the country.