The Government of Kenya has issued a stun warning to truck drivers, Boda Boda operators and matatus who are flouting Coronavirus in Kenya measures that have been put in place to fight coronavirus.
Speaking during today’s COVID 19 media briefing the Cabinet Secretary for Health Mutahi Kagwe cautioned Boda Boda operators who are ferrying people across restricted areas, arguing that they will face the law.
“There are people who are not complying with movement restrictions in and out of counties and even from neighbouring countries in particular truck drivers who are smuggling people from restricted areas and they must stop. I want to tell such irresponsible drivers that they are rolling back our efforts to fight this disease. and the enforcement agencies will catch up with them,” he warned.
The CS also warned those being held in quarantine facilities to stop offering bribes to get out of the quarantine noting that this will not be condoned.
He noted that the National Emergency Response team is aware of what they are going through and is responding to their concerns. “It is much better to be counted as among those that helped keep Coronavirus in Kenya at bay, than to be counted as the inconsiderate few who failed to appreciate the danger that this pandemic presents,” he advised.
CS Kagwe cited Mandera county where some people bribed their way out of quarantine. “For those who let them off , they will face the full force of the law,”he said.
He also gave an example of Homabay county where the Governor’s administration intercepted a private vehicle with an empty casket having travelled all the way from Nairobi in the pretence of attending a funeral.
They were immediately put on quarantine, and now they have brought the first case of Coronavirus to the county after the Driver of the vehicle confirmed positive., the CS said.
He argued that unless Kenyans are self-disciplined coronavirus is going to finish us. “Why export this disease to Homabay for selfish reasons,” he wondered.
“This is not a time for cat and mouse games, the people who are modeling for us are telling us that we could lose 28,000 Kenyans as a result of this disease unless we observe measures that have been put in place,” he disclosed.
He also called on Kenyans to maintain good nutrition, hydration and physical activity in order to increase their immunity to overcome the COVID-19 disease better.
He, however, warned the public to be wary of non-factual food and nutrition information that is going round social media circles especially on the healing effect of certain food and drinks noting that this is bringing a lot of confusion to the people.
“ I want to advise Kenyans to get public health information from health care providers, Ministry of Health and the WHO website,” he advised.
He revealed that in the last 24 hours the government had doubled testing, and out of 1115 samples tested, 16 cases have tested positive bringing the total number of confirmed cases in the country to 262.
“The higher the samples, the higher the numbers of new cases and this, therefore, speaks both to the urgency to test as many Kenyans as possible,” he said and noted that every Kenyan should assume the next person next to them is positive and take precautionary measures.
Out of the 16 positive cases today, 15 are Kenyans while 1 is a foreigner. None of them had a history of travel and one of the new cases emanated from the quarantine centres.
Twelve are male and four are female. Nine are from Nairobi, five from Mombasa and one from Homabay counties and they are aged between 23 and 84 years of age.
The CS Kagwe also announced 7 discharges bringing the number of recoveries to 60 and two deaths bringing the total number of Coronavirus in Kenya deaths to 12.
He also confirmed that Nairobi has detected, isolated and hosted 73 percent of the Covid 19 cases in the country, followed by Mombasa, Kilifi and Mandera and has also mapped the cases and zeroed down to the areas of origin.
In Nairobi for example the cases are spread between almost all the estates with Kilimani leading with 6, Pipeline 5, Karen, South C, and Utawala have 4 cases each and Kawangware has 3 . Others are Tassia, Kitusuru, Parklands, Buru Buru and Kibra who have 2 cases each while almost every other city estates have at least reported one case namely Donholm, Eastleigh, Hurlingham, Lavingon, Runda, Ngara, Madaraka, Kasarani among others.
A total of 2609 contacts have been monitored , out of which 2036 have been discharged while 573 contracts are being followed at the moment A total of 11,909 samples have been tested so far.
