- WHO recommends that for a country to be declared as having flattened the curve, they must record a positivity rate of five per cent for a period of at least 14 days.
- However, the country’s curve has been fluctuating between two per cent and six per cent in the past one week.
Image: MERCY MUMO
Kenyans will have to continue taking the existing Covid-19 containment measures seriously for the curve to be flattened.
Despite the country’s positivity rate going below the recommended five per cent in the last few days, experts fear that this might be reversed should there be laxity among Kenyans, with the political gatherings which are virus super spreaders taking shape ahead of the 2022 elections.
The World Health Organization recommends that for a country to be declared as having flattened the curve, they must record a positivity rate of below five per cent consistently for a period of at least 14 days.
However, the country’s curve has been fluctuating between two per cent and six per cent in the past one week.
For instance, the rate was 4.2 per cent on Monday last week, 4.5 per cent on Tuesday and jumped to a high of six per cent on Wednesday, 5.2 per cent on Thursday, 5.4 per cent on Friday and 5.8 per cent on Saturday.
However, the rate has dropped to below five per cent this week with Monday recording the lowest rate of 2.2 per cent, the lowest rate that has been reported since the end of the second wave in January this year. The rate was four per cent on Tuesday.
According to chief consultant pathologist Dr Ahmed Kalebi, Kenya is on the tail end of the delta-driven fourth wave with low hospitalisations also being recorded.
“The low number of tests done is also generally a good reflection of decreased demand for testing in Kenya, as testing is usually prompted by clinical suspicion and contacts of positive cases, meaning with low caseload and low community transmission there is less push for testing,” Kalebi said.
“The blanket curfew and restrictions on public gathering can be eased across the country then daily caseload monitored as well as instituting targeted meaningful public health surveillance to inform localised or focused reinstatement of measures in emerging hotspots,” he added.
Global health expert notes the political gatherings risk reversing the gains made, adding that it is high time the political class embraced other means of passing their messages to the masses.
He adds that observing the containment measures coupled with an accelerated vaccination campaign would be key in ensuring the rate remains below five per cent.
“Given the availability of vaccines we can go house-to-house or to churches on Sundays where there is a good gathering and after service people can be vaccinated."
"These political gatherings are super spreaders. We have seen people gathering without masks, not keeping distance and if that can happen, then such gatherings should be used as an opportunity to vaccinate people. When we get to extraordinary situations we do extraordinary things,” he said.
According to health director general Patrick Amoth, other indicators of a flattened curve include relatively low facility admissions and deaths.
“Flattening the curve is an event so it is not important because for sure we still have these surges and spikes going on until everybody is vaccinated and everybody is offered protection,” Amoth said during an earlier briefing.
As of Tuesday, Kenya had recorded 248,770 infections with 241,180 recoveries and 5,116 deaths.
-Edited by SKanyara