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Covid -19: is Kenya stuck in a perennial loop?

A police station in Emuhaya Vihiga County has been closed for 14 days after three officers tested positive for Covid-19. This is according to Commander Reuben Kemboi. Vihiga is among the 13 hot spot counties now under a 7 pm to 4 am curfew alongside Kisumu, Busia, V Kisii, Nyamira, Kakamega, Bungoma, Kericho, Bomet, Trans Nzoia, Siaya, Homa-Bay, and Migori.

This comes against the backdrop of an additional 155 more positive cases of coronavirus announced on 23rd June 2021,  from a sample of  4,171 tested in the past 24 hours.

According to the Chief Administrative Secretary (CAS), for Health, Dr. Mercy Mwangangi, the country now has a total of 4,952 confirmed cases with the total number tested by the government so far at 146,537 samples.

The move by the government was necessitated by the need to contain the spread of the Covid- 19 virus after the highly contagious delta variant was detected in the region and started on Friday, June 18th, 2021

According to the Ministry of Health reports, the positivity rate in the 13 regions averages 21 percent, while that of the remaining parts of the country is at 9 percent.

“The surge of infections in the aforementioned counties is further compounded by their proximity to the neighboring Uganda, which has similarly reported a surge of Covid-19 infections,” said Health Cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe

The implications of a closed police station are just too severe to even start imagining and these are beside the deaths and economic suffering that is bound to hound any region afflicted by the Coronavirus and especially the delta variant.

What is happening right now in the western belt of the country is just a matter of the same script but different cast. The more things change in Kenya where we are always asked to observe the Covid-19 protocols, the more they stay the same.

As soon as the number of affected people reduces people become lazy and careless both at the individual level and as far as collective responsibility is concerned. The latter is more concerning as the politicians in Kenya seem not to care and continue to pull crowds as they campaign for and against issues such as the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI) and by-elections.

The infodemic that has plagued the country and the rest of the world is now shifting from the denial of the disease and has eyes firmly trained on the vaccines and the many reasons there should be no vaccine uptake. Despite the infodemic and inaccessibility to the vaccine for some people, so far a total of 1,201,325 people have been vaccinated, 997,420 are on their first doses while 203 905 are on their second doses. The vaccinations above are 20.4% and 0.75% of the total population respectively.

Testing for many people seems to have taken a back burner as well with many of the afflicted people opting to self-medicate at home and this can largely be attributed to the stigma that comes with a confirmed case.

At the moment, we seem to be taking several steps ahead which often brings about a sigh of relief then we go back a few more steps. Meanwhile, the impact of the disease seems totally lost on us; if we realized the seriousness of the effects of the disease then we will be serious about individual and collective responsibility. Below are some articles that help to paint the chronology of Covid-19 in Kenya from where we started and where we are as a country.

 http://danielominde.co.ke/2021/06/11/covid-19-politicians-worsening-an-already-bad-situation/

https://techmoran.com/2021/06/15/tech-innovations-that-have-come-up-due-to-the-pandemic-in-the-last-year/

https://kendesk.co.ke/2021/06/15/covid-19-vaccines-how-is-the-progress-in-kenya/

 https://chetenet.com/2021/06/16/effects-of-covid-19-on-learning-in-kenya/

https://khusoko.com/2021/06/17/kenya-needs-a-booster-for-its-overstretched-health-sector/

https://www.dhahabu.co.ke/2021/06/16/tourism-sector-takes-significant-heat-from-coronavirus-restrictions/

https://techmoran.com/2021/06/17/covid-19-conspiracy-theories-fake-news-and-misinformation/

http://danielominde.co.ke/2021/06/11/covid-19-politicians-worsening-an-already-bad-situation/

  https://kendesk.co.ke/2021/06/19/embracing-the-new-norm-how-covid-19-is-changing-the-work-environment/

https://chetenet.com/2021/06/18/kenya-covid-19-vaccination-challenges/

https://www.dhahabu.co.ke/2021/06/17/kenyans-struggle-to-maintain-covid-19-protocols/

https://khusoko.com/2021/06/18/covid-19-impact-reopening-coronavirus-stressed-kenyan-economy/

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