Corona cases hit 8,000 mark as Uhuru lifts cessation order
Irene Githinji @gitshee
The country’s coronavirus caseload hit the 8,000 mark yesterday after 181 more people tested positive for the disease.
Health Cabinet Secretary, Mutahi Kagwe said in a statement that the caseload for people who have tested positive now stands at 8,067.
“From the cases that tested positive, 179 are Kenyans while two are foreigners.
By gender, 123 are males and 58 are females. The youngest is a four-month-old infant while the oldest is 79 years,” said Kagwe.
So far, the cumulative samples tested stand at 191,394.
The new surge came on a day that President Uhuru Kenyatta announced a phased-out reopening of the economy.
The President directed that the cessation of movement into and out of the Nairobi Metropolitan Area, Mombasa and Mandera counties, which has been in force for well over three months, will lapse this morning.
One case
However, the President warned that for any trends that signal a worsening of the pandemic, the Government will have no choice but to return to the lock-down at zero-option.
“The order to re-open is given conditionally. Should the situation deteriorate and pose a challenge to our health infrastructure, it shall be ‘clawed back’.
In the next 21 days, we shall study patterns of interactions and the spread of the disease,” the President warned.
By distribution, Nairobi had 134 cases, Kiambu 19, Mombasa 9, and Kajiado and Machakos had 6 cases each while Lamu and Murang’a had 3 and 2 cases, respectively. Uasin Gishu and Kirinyaga reported one case each.
In Nairobi, the highest case load was reported in Dagoretti North and Embakasi East with 21 cases each, Embakasi South had 16 while Westlands recorded 11 cases and Starehe had nine.
Mathare and Roysambu recorded 8 cases each, Langa’ta had 6 while Embakasi Central, Embakasi West, Kasarani and Makadara had five cases each.
In Kiambu, the cases were distributed in Thika with seven cases, Limuru and Ruiru had three, Kabete and Kiambu had two cases each while Juja and Kikuyu reported a single case each.
Kagwe said another 127 patients were discharged from various hospitals, bringing the total number of recoveries to 2,414.
“We thank our healthcare workers for the good work,” the minister said.
However, four more patients succumbed to Covid-19, bringing the total fatalities to 164.
