US raises Kenya’s Covid alert to Level 4

Kenya is among East African countries classified as harbouring “very high levels of Covid-19” by the American Centers for Disease Control.

The country was classified in “Level Four” category, with the CDC strongly warning American citizens against travelling into the country, stating that travelling may increase their chances of getting and spreading Covid-19.

But even then, the Ministry of Health yesterday said Kenya was on top of things and that other countries were free to issue travel advisories in dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic.

“We are okay with other countries providing their own advisories, we feel we are on top of our situation and we will continue to apply the measures that we have done to control this pandemic,” said Dr Rashid Aman, Chief Administrative Secretary in MoH.

He said every country has a right to be able to determine how to deal with the evolving pandemic: “It’s not a surprise that the CDC in America feels that they want to grade the situation in Kenya to Level Four as well as issue a travel advisory.”

The CAS said the second wave of the pandemic has been declining over the last several days, from a positivity rate of as high as 20 percent to the current 12 percent.

When the virus struck, Kenya issued travel advisories against various countries at the time were deemed ‘dangerous’. One of those countries was Tanzania, which borders Kenya to the south, whose handling of the disease has been criticised.

But now the CDC has lumped Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Burundi in the same category, despite measures taken including curfews and cessation of movement as well as declining numbers of reported cases of Covid-19.

According to statistics from the Ministry of Tourism, Tanzania is third in terms of the countries which had the highest number of tourists in the country this year with 43,649 after Uganda (60,399) and the USA (53,444).

But if a person must travel into the East African countries, according to the CDC, they must get a viral test one to three days before the trip. Yesterday, the Ministry of Health announced1,253 new cases from 10,170 new tests, bringing to 86,383 the confirmed cases of Covid-19.

As of Thursday, the country had tested a total of 911,596 samples. Nairobi continues to bear the heaviest burden of the disease after reporting 326 new cases followed Mombasa with 143, Kilifi 105, Kiambu 86 and Murang’a 67 among other counties.

The MoH on Thursday also announced the highest number of recoveries of 11,324 — 11,177 from the home-based care and isolation programme and 147 from various hospitals, bringing to 67,788 the total number of recoveries in the country.

It reported that 73 patients were in the Intensive Care Unit and another 77 were reportedly on supplemental oxygen. The total deaths have increased to 1,500, after 16 patients yesterday were reported dead.