•The positivity rate in the past one week has risen to as high as 5.6 per cent on Saturday.
•The ministry has said before that Covid spreads faster in a cold environment.
Image: MAGDALINE SAYA
Covid-19 cases are rising again and the Health ministry has urged Kenyans to wear masks and wash their hands regularly.
Health PS Susan Mochache on Monday said the rise in cases is a concern to the ministry. She said, however, the country is prepared for any eventuality.
“With just 30 per cent of the population vaccinated, we are still at risk of suffering another burden of Covid-19 where restrictions will have to be imposed, where people are sick and are hospitalised,” she said.
The ministry has said before that Covid spreads faster in a cold environment.
"We are now in the cold season, the rains are here, so I urge Kenyans to go back to upholding the basic protocols at an individual level. Wear your mask and wash your hands.”
The positivity rate in the past one week has increased. On Saturday it rose to 5.6 per cent.
The positivity rate was at 3.3 per cent on Tuesday last week after 75 people tested positive for the virus from a sample size of 2,248.
The rate rose from 2.2 per cent on Monday before dropping to 1.9 per cent on Wednesday. On Thursday it was three per cent, Friday 3.4 per cent and on Sunday 3.7 per cent.
The number of hospital admissions has also remained relatively low at four cases in the past week, but the number of patients under home-based care programme has been on the rise in the past week.
The number was 296 on Monday, it shot up to 335 on Tuesday, 376 on Wednesday, 378 on Thursday, 421 on Friday, 523 on Saturday and 586 on Sunday.
“We will stop worrying when we have achieved the vaccination of 60 per cent of our population," Mochache said in a briefing.
"The main thing that will help our country and make sure that we don’t roll back to the days when Covid devastated our economy is to simply get vaccinated,” the PS said.
“In terms of preparedness, we have our ICU beds ready, we have hospital beds ready, we have oxygen ready but I don’t think that is where we want to direct our efforts if we can avoid it.”
To date, 18.1 million vaccines have been administered across the country, with 16.4 million being doses administered to the adult population and another 1.3 million to teens between the ages of 15 and 17.
Some 34,226 doses have been administered to those aged between 12 and 15 years while 335,015 are booster shots.
After the government relaxed containment measures, the country has witnessed a drop in the number of daily uptake of vaccines from 150,000 to 9,000 daily.
Experts have however downplayed the severity of rising Covid-19 infections in the country.
The resurgence was predicted last month and the state is blaming the reluctance to observe preventive measures such as washing hands and wearing face masks in enclosed spaces.