Kenya’s Covid-19 positivity rate has remained below five per cent for the past seven days, an indicator that the country might be flattening the curve.
Yesterday, the Health Ministry confirmed that 124 more people had tested positive for the virus from a sample size of 2,855 tested within 24 hours, representing a positivity rate of 4.3 per cent.
No fatality was recorded, meaning the death toll remains 1,685.
The number of patients in health facilities and in critical care, as well as those under the home-based care programme, has been on the decline.
Yesterday, 650 patients were in health facilities across the country and 2,934 were being taken care of at home.
Data from the ministry showed that 26 patients were in intensive care units, 12 of whom were on ventilator support, 11 on supplemental oxygen and three under observation.
Another 19 patients were separately on supplemental oxygen in the general wards, with none being in the high dependency unit.
The World Health Organisation recommends that for a country to be seen as having flattened the curve, it must record a positivity rate of below five per cent for at least 14 consecutive days.
“At the moment the country is experiencing very low rates, below five per cent over the past almost seven days or so and for that reason, there is the confidence that hopefully, it is something we can maintain even after opening the schools,” Health CS Mutahi Kagwe said.
“However, we must anticipate any situation and that is why we have asked that the preparations for all sorts of isolation facilities in the counties are all put in place just in the event of anything like that happening.”
The ministry also confirmed that 216 patients had recovered from the disease, 178 from the home-based care programme and 38 from health facilities, raising the recoveries to 79,073.
“As a ministry, we will continue to pursue other means of protection and as you are aware, we are also working on vaccines,” Kagwe said.
He said teachers are also frontline soldiers because they interact with many learners.
In terms of distribution per county, Nairobi recorded 67 cases, followed by Busia with 12, Lamu eight, Nakuru six, while Mombasa and Nakuru had five each.
Machakoshad four new cases; Isiolo, Makueni and Uasin Gishu three cases each; Meru and Taita Taveta two each; while Kiambu, Kirinyaga, Kisumu and Narok had one case each.
