NAIROBI, Kenya, Mar 26 – Kenya on Friday reported 2,008 new COVID-19 cases from a sample size of 11,360 on a day that President Uhuru Kenyatta issued new guidelines including a lockdown in capital Nairobi and other four counties.
The country’s positivity rate stood at 17.7 per cent.
Health Cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe said of the new cases, 1,954 were Kenyans while 54 were foreigners.
A year-old baby and a 94-year -old woman were among the new cases.
Nairobi county registered 1,071 cases, followed by Nakuru which posted 189. Kiambu recorded 105 cases, Machakos 84 and Mombasa 76.
Kagwe further reported that 6 more patients had succumbed raising fatalities to 2,098.
By Friday, 1,192 patients were admitted in various hospitals with 124 in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) and 37 on ventilatory support. Kagwe said 78 were on supplemental oxygen.
However 245 patients recovered from the virus among them 165 from Home Based Care and 80 from various health facilities across the country.
Total recoveries stood at 91, 513.
CS Kagwe further announced that 90,340 persons had already been vaccinated.
Kenya imposed a lockdown in the capital Nairobi, Machakos, Kiambu, Kajiado and Nakuru which were listed as COVID-19 infected regions requiring tough restrictions after the third wave of the pandemic swept the country with unprecedented infections and deaths since February.
“That fully conscious that 70 per cent of Kenya’s reported cases of COVID-19 have been recorded in the Counties of Nairobi, Kajiado, Machakos, Kiambu and Nakuru. These counties are individually and collectively declared a disease infected area,” Kenyatta declared.
Effectively, he said, “there shall be a cessation of movement into and out of the five counties effective Saturday until further notice.”
In a national address, Kenyatta ordered “that there shall be cessation of all movement by road, rail, or air into and out of the disease infected area… effective midnight tonight.”
Citing statistics from the Ministry of Health, Kenyatta said “if you test 100 Kenyans today, 20 will be positive compared to January this year when only 2 would have been positive.”
“This tells us that the rate of infection has gone up 10 times between January and March 2021,” he added.
Worse still, he said, out of every 10 positive cases countrywide, 6 are reported in Nairobi.
