NAIROBI, Kenya, Nov 6 – Twenty-one more people succumbed to COVID-19 within 24 hours lapsing on Friday bringing the total number of virus-linked fatalities reported in the country to since April to 1,093.
Health Cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe, in a status update issued to newsrooms, also announced 1,109 COVID-19 cases had been detected from 7,153 raising the number of cases reported in the country since March to 60,704.
“699 are males and 410 are females with the youngest being a one-year old baby while the oldest is aged 9,” he said.
The Ministry of Health has tested 730,363 samples since the onset of the virus in March.
Nairobi County accounted for the majority of the new infections posting 347 cases followed by Mombasa which had 198 cases, Nakuru (73) and Uasin Gishu (69).
Kagwe said 1, 300 patients were currently admitted in various health facilities countrywide while 5, 439 were on the home-based care.
Sixty patients were in the Intensive Care Unit; twenty-seven of whom are on ventilatory support and twenty-seve on supplemental oxygen.
Another eighty-five patients are separately on supplementary oxygen out of whom seventy-five were in the general wards while fourteen were in the High Dependency Unit.
Kagwe said 856 patients who were under the home-based care had been cleared of the virus while another eighty-two were discharged from various hospitals countrywide bringing the total number of recoveries in the country to 40,131.
Kenya reviewed its COVID-19 measures Wednesday in renewed efforts aimed at arresting the surging cases of COVID-19.
President Uhuru Kenyatta said the decision was taken due to increased infections and deaths which had gone up since August when some of the tough restrictions were lifted.
“The positivity rate has shot up four times from September,” the President said, declaring October as the “most tragic month in our fight against COVID-19.”
He said “we are now staring at a second wave of the pandemic” and urged all Kenyans to strictly follow regulations issued by the Ministry of Health.
Some of the new measures include the suspension of political gatherings for 60 days, closure of bars by 9pm and a review of the night curfew to start at 10pm to 4am.
He also ordered civil servants aged above 50 years and anyone with compromised immunity to work from home.
President Kenyatta directed all government meetings to be held virtually so as to protect public servants and members of the public visiting their offices.
Schools which were closed in March will now re-open in January 2021 but Grade IV, Class VIII and Form IV assessments will proceed as planned. Learners in these classes resumed learning in October.
He urged Members of Parliament to utilize Constituency Development Fund (CDF) to provide additional hand-washing points and face masks as part of preparations for the schools re-opening in January.
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