It is a fact that Lamu County, in Kenya, is one of the very few that does not have even a single case of positivity to the Covid-19 virus that is plaguing the planet and that has already spread, with at least one case, in 21 regions of the African country.
Yet the swabs carried out are no less than those carried out in at least two coastal regions, those of Kilifi and Kwale, which have 10 and 2 cases respectively.
In fact, that of Lamu is the only one of the four counties overlooking the Indian Ocean (except for Tana River County which, however, has very little coastline and more marshy than marine) that has not been closed from the outside.
The last to be tested, two days ago, were the members of a family who had returned to the county's main island after being in Malindi, shortly before President Kenyatta ordered the regional borders to be closed. The six family members tested negative for the virus, despite some symptoms (cough and fever) suggesting the worst.
The same had already happened to other people, including an Italian living in Mpeketoni, a village forty kilometres from Lamu.
According to the elders of the archipelago, the "secret" of the absence of Coronavirus in their villages is due no less than the salt water of the Indian Ocean.
For weeks now, the local community has been inviting citizens to swim every day for a few hours in the sea and do salt water ablutions, in the belief that this practice could help keep away all kinds of bacteria.
In fact, this is a very old belief in the Islamic archipelago in the north of Kenya, since in the past citizens have saved themselves both from the plague epidemic brought by Portuguese sailors and more recently, in the early twentieth century, from the Spanish fever that arrived with ships from India.
"We obviously have no scientific evidence of our creed," explained the elders' leader Khaldun Vae to the press, "but for centuries, our ancestors and even ourselves have used salt water from the Indian Ocean as a remedy for various ailments. If you have a wound and swim in salt water, you heal faster. We were already used to treating viruses such as flu, common cold and other diseases using salt water, and it worked very well. We therefore advise our people, especially the elderly people from all over Lamu County and the coastal region, to get into the habit of swimming frequently in salt water from the Indian Ocean, especially during this period of Covid-19. We believe that after swimming, no virus, including the Crown, can survive".
Kassim Shee, another eminent elder, claims that swimming in the Indian Ocean may at least complement hand washing and other precautionary measures to curb the spread of Covid-19.
"This epidemic is no joke," Shee said, "but if we integrate our traditional methods, which in more than one circumstance have been shown to be saving, with those branched out by the government, we have an even better chance of not contracting the virus. History teaches and our ancestors have always avoided major pandemics".
Institutions have also decided to follow traditions and every night they use salt water from the Indian Ocean to clean the old city, using it instead of disinfectants.
For posterity the difficult sentence, however, would be the first time that it does not work in an island where the worst of civilization has arrived late and little by little. Motorcycles, for example, since last year, cars still do not, except for the police truck. The same goes for 4G and large retailers: here you can still shop in small shops, despite the fact that it is a tourist resort with five-star resorts and dream boutique hotels. Maybe that's why the virus doesn't set foot here...