The progressive, albeit fortunately slow, increase in cases of Covid-19 positive cases in Kenya is pushing the Government to even more restrictive measures against its citizens.
After deciding to ban all movement within two densely populated districts of Nairobi and Mombasa, Health Minister Mutahi Kagwe has announced that, if this is the case and the rules are not respected, he will apply further restrictions.
The area of Eastleigh, called "Little Mogadishu" because it is inhabited by many people of Somali origin and practically all Muslim, thanks also to Ramadan which will end in two weeks, has seen the cases of Coronavirus grow exponentially and the Department of Health estimates that, being 95% of the population asymptomatic, there are thousands of people potentially able to infect even vulnerable people who could see their health deteriorate. The same thing is happening, in a slightly lesser form, in the Old Town of Mombasa, where there is even more mistrust of the Government's actions to limit the pandemic. In Mombasa, many people are hiding their symptoms and the emergency team of the Ministry of Health has discovered that the last two deaths of citizens took place in private homes, with members of the families of the deceased trying to keep their relatives' illness in the dark, even at risk of infecting other people. Even in the Old City of Mombasa the majority of residents are Muslim and it seems that the idea of herd immunity interests them much more than risking quarantine in government facilities, at their own expense.
Hence the protests and the predisposition to evade tampons.
Yesterday even a family of five, all found positive for the swab, left their home where they had been put in isolation and lost track of them. The county authorities are looking for them and have already announced that their punishment will be exemplary.
However, the threat in recent days has also come from outside.
The National Council of County Governors has asked the government to close the land borders with neighboring nations.  New cases have occurred in Wajir County, on the border with Somalia, in the north near the Kakuma refugee camp not far from Uganda and in Kwale County with people who have recently returned from Tanzania.
In addition, in the last week thirty Tanzanian citizens who tried to settle in Kenya were arrested by the police and put in quaranteen. Kajiado County, which extends from Mara to Serengeti in Tanzania, also had its first cases.
Now the governors are clamouring for the borders to be completely closed, not least to avoid dangerous entrances that could be favoured by corruption at the border posts.
Prime Minister Wycliffe Oparanya, Governor of Kakamega County, noted that in the past week, nine counties bordering other countries have quarantined 205 people and tested 249 for the disease.
Oparanya recalled that the issue of borders is part of the Government's functions, so governors cannot force the leaders of other countries to do so, so he urged the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to draw up a protocol to deal with neighboring countries, allowing only limited access, in order to contain the disease.
The Ministry of Health and the Counties have already put in place tight controls and initiatives such as the disinfestation of trucks in transit from neighboring countries and the control of all people entering. Truckers arriving from Tanzania and Uganda have also been swabbed since Tuesday. In Tanzania, complicit in a questionable policy without restrictions by President John Pombe Magufuli, the cases have grown from 100 to 480 in a few days and the opposition and civil society ensure that thousands are infected. Somalia is also approaching 1000 and the government in the border areas with Kenya has been absent for years.