•Coronavirus is NOT a rich man's disease, it affects everyone. It's not mainly in the Northern Hemisphere.
•Coronavirus affects a number of counties, potentially all of them, not just Nairobi and the Coast.
When news of the coronavirus broke in Wuhan Province in China, where it originated, it moved across the West and Europe before finally landing in Kenya.
At the beginning, most people shrugged it off, claiming that the African gene is stronger and that's why they were not getting infected. Or there's something protective in hot countries.
On Wednesday, the World Health Organization data said Africa has 11,418 confirmed Covid-19 cases and 533 deaths caused by the coronavirus.
Africa accounts for just two per cent of global air travel, explaining why the coronavirus pandemic may have reached Africa later. And there's lack of testing.
“Case numbers are increasing exponentially in the African region,” WHO Africa director Matshidiso Moeti said.
“It took 16 days from the first confirmed case in the region to reach 100 cases. It took a further 10 days to reach the first thousand. Three days after this, there were 2,000 cases, and two days later we were at 3,000.”
The number, however, still seems so low to the ‘expert’ netizens who quickly spread their opinions, stated as facts, to explain numbers.
“We have a good immunity and that is why the coronavirus cases in Kenya remain low. I have a feeling that many people have been infected and recovered naturally,” Philip Otieno said on Twitter.
WHO, while commending African countries for putting in place measures to reduce the spread, said the disease is not being sufficiently diagnosed; if there were more testing, there would be more numbers.
The average age on the African continent is 20 years, the youngest in the world, with only three per cent of the African population over 65 years old.
Knowing that the disease is generally more severe among the elderly and based on currently available information and clinical expertise, older adults and people of any age with serious underlying medical conditions are at higher risk of severe illness.
But there are exceptions, a 95-year-old woman recovered and is very well, a healthy three-year-old baby died; many young and apparently healthy people are seriously afflicted.
Another common myth is that coronavirus is a disease for the rich. Globally, poor people have complained that the disease was spread by the rich as they flew around the globe while the poor were left to suffer the consequences.
This definitely does not mean the poor cannot contract the virus, otherwise, why all the stringent precautions in Kenya and elsewhere in Africa. And what about India.
The recent coronavirus cases are of people with no history of travel, some from poor backgrounds. Health Cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe explained the disease is at the community transmission stage, which gives more reason for social distancing.
“This is not the time to blindly trust your neighbour because you see him or her around every day. The minute one leaves the house, they are at risk,” he said.
Kagwe emphasised that the directives for public places and matatus to remain clean only indicate the disease can affect anyone indiscriminately.
With the worry that if it hits the eastern and northeastern parts of Kenya, health workers will have a harder time managing the spread due to the largely mobile pastoralist economy.
Another myth has emerged. That the coronavirus cannot survive in very hot temperatures.
On Tuesday, Mandera county, which has been experiencing temperatures of as much as 42 degrees Celsius, reported the first two cases of coronavirus.
This also demystifies the grapevine that coronavirus is for Nairobi and Coastal counties as the disease has also been reported in Kisii, Kiambu, Machakos and elsewhere.
The Southern China flight that landed in Kenya before the country reported the first case has been blamed by many for bringing the pandemic into the country.
However, Brenda Cherono, the first Covid-19 patient in the country, was not aboard that flight. She explained that she had travelled back to the country through London in the UK, where the virus was already a pandemic.
But in recent weeks, as the number of cases in Africa has soared, even the breeziest of African leaders have been forced to take drastic actions.
More than two-thirds of African states have imposed restrictions on movement, while 17 have enforced total or partial lockdowns as WHO asserts, everyone is at risk.
(Edited by V. Graham)