NAIROBI, Kenya July 27 – President Uhuru Kenyatta on Monday convened a virtual extraordinary summit bringing together the two levels of government to discuss progress made in containing the COVID-19 pandemic and review projections for the months of August and September.
The fifth extraordinary summit was expected to assess patterns of new infections over the past 21 days following the lifting of an inter-country travel ban affecting Nairobi, Mombasa and Mandera. A similar ban had been imposed much earlier on Kwale and Kilifi counties.
The Head of State is later in the afternoon expected to issue a national address outlining resolutions of the summit and the readiness by individual counties to manage COVID-19 cases in line with his earlier directive requiring devolved units to set up at least 300 beds to manage virus cases.
The summit will receive presentations from the Council Of Governors (CoG) , the Ministry of Health, Ministry of Education as well as the Interfaith Council headed by Archbishop Anthony Muheria.
Archbishop Muheria will brief the summit on the effectiveness on virus-control measures in places on worship with current guidelines limiting congregations to 100 for every worship session which lasts for not more than an hour.
“Currently attending the Fifth (5th) Extra Ordinary Session of the National and County Governments Coordinating Summit chaired by President Uhuru Kenyatta via virtual Conference,” CoG Chairperson Wycliffe Oparanya tweeted, confirming his attendance.
The extra-ordinary summit meeting is also expected to assess counties’ preparedness in the wake of increased numbers of COVID-19 infections.
Also to be reviewed is the impact of the phased easing of restrictions that were put in place.
“The Session shall be a status conference that shall assess the Counties’ state preparedness within the wider national response to the novel coronavirus pandemic and evaluate Kenya’s overall national response and capacity,” State House Spokesperson Kanze Dena said through a statement issued Monday, 20th July.
During his July 6 presidential address when he lifted the cessation of movement order in the counties of Nairobi, Mombasa and Mandera, President Kenyatta urged Kenyans to exercise COVID- 19 prevention measures to prevent the spread of the virus.
In readiness to deal with the surging numbers of COVID-19, the president had earlier on directed County governments to have at least a 300- bed capacity in isolation centers.
Nonetheless, the CoG Chairperson reported that as of June 26, only 12 counties were compliant on an agreement to set up 300 isolation beds.
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