For all our sakes, be cautious

The Pigeons, terrified by the appearance of a Kite, called upon the Hawk to defend them. He at once consented. When they had admitted him into their home, they found that he made more havoc and slew a larger number of them in one day than the Kite could pounce upon in a whole year.

In life, we must always strive to seek remedies that are not worse than the disease and this is where Kenya and the rest of the world is at in dealing with the coronavirus pandemic.

On Monday, the President gave us new direction as we continue to battle the Covid-19 pandemic. As we all know, the country has slowly been moving back to normalcy as Kenyans seek to make a living and build the country.

We must always remember that the measures put in place since the beginning, including the latest presidential communication, are aimed at helping us defeat the pandemic and ensure that the economy keeps running.

June saw us record more than 4,000 cases, which was double what we had recorded between March and May. This means that we need to remain extra cautious as we move forward, even as we prepare to rebuild on the time lost.

As we have seen in the rest of the world, if you open up and fail to adhere to the measures aimed at helping us flatten the curve, things go wrong pretty fast. We must therefore remain cautious as we are not out of the woods yet.

Kenyans must now move with speed to recover the time lost during the tough restrictions that were in place. And while doing this, we must ensure that we stay safe and work to flatten the curve.

If there is one thing that the pandemic has taught us is that we should strive to always work smart.

We, like the rest of the world, were ill prepared for the pandemic and must learn the lessons that came with it. We were not prepared in all areas that were affected by the pandemic.

Each and every Kenyan has felt the effect of the pandemic whether economically, health-wise or socially. We must never find ourselves in this predicament again as this will not be the last pandemic that the world will experience.

We have learnt the importance of investing in health to ensure that our systems are not overwhelmed. We have learnt why it is important to have our doctors and other medical workers well trained and equipped.

Counties have over the years failed to invest in health adequately but this pandemic has forced them to do it. The pandemic has also ensured that we see the capacity and capability of our manufacturing sector.

This must be the first time in history that we have seen our fabric manufacturing sector work at its optimum and we must now build on these gains.

We, for many years, talked about how tech savvy our society had become but the pandemic taught us that this was just a lot of talk. We were forced to individually and collectively invest heavily in March to ensure that we are digitally connected.

We even learnt that we do not have to walk into a supermarket to do our shopping. At a fee, we are able to have the supermarkets pack our shopping and send it over, thus even creating more jobs along the way.

In other words, there are great lessons that have come from the pandemic for individuals, companies and the government and which we must take to heart as we move into the future.

In the meantime, we must try our level best to maintain social distance, wear our masks, sanitise regularly, maintain high levels of hygiene and eat the right foods to boost our immunity.

We must join the world in learning to live with this virus without exacerbating the situation to levels that we cannot manage. We must play our part as individuals and also collectively as a society to ensure that we overcome this together.