The percentage of positives from swabs taken in Kenya jumps well over 10% and is back to the levels of the second wave last November, i.e. 12.2%.
While those who malign the disease believe that this could be a "move" to justify, in a few days, the decision to further extend the curfew regime, health structures and laboratories explain the high number of cases of the "English variant", a strain that is now known to be less dangerous than the original strain of Sars-Cov2, but much more contagious.
In any case, in the last 24 hours, 633 individuals have been found positive for the coronavirus, out of 5183 swabs taken. A good 430 of these are residents of Nairobi and another 58 in the satellite towns of Kiambu County. On the coast there are still few cases, but even the number of swabs taken is negligible to establish what percentage of the population is still infected with the virus. In the last 24 hours only 7 cases in Mombasa and 4 in Kilifi.
Of yesterday's positives, 554 are Kenyan citizens while 79 are foreigners. This confirms to the authorities to continue with the checks on incoming swabs by those arriving from abroad and also on outgoing swabs, especially for admission into airports. In Mombasa and Nairobi, there are now pre-check in desks where one has to present the swab with a TT code that confirms the validity of the certificate issued by an approved laboratory. This is because counterfeit PCR certificates have been discovered in the past.
The number of patients cured of Covid-19 in the last 24 hours is reassuring. There are 374 of them, bringing the total to 87,550. Only one patient died, bringing the number of deaths in just under a year to 1874. Kenya ranks 80th out of 226 countries in the number of coronavirus deaths.
There are 483 patients currently admitted to various health facilities across the country, while another 1,389 are in isolation and home care.
69 patients are in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU), 26 of whom are on ventilatory support and 33 on supplementary oxygen.
10 patients are under observation. Another 18 patients are separately on supplementary oxygen and all are in the general wards. No patients are in the high dependency unit (HDU).