29 more cases of coronavirus have been recorded in the country in the last 24 hours and have tested positive to the disease. Giving the daily updates this afternoon, Health Cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe said the new cases were among the over 600 cases tested since the start of the week.
The 29 new cases are all locals and one Congolese national.
This now brings the total number of cases in the country to 110. One of the new cases was of a Congolese national. Two more deaths have also been reported, one in Mombasa and one in Nairobi, bringing to 3 the total number of coronavirus deaths in the country.
Meanwhile, the Health Cabinet Secretary has announced that the Kilifi county deputy governor Gideon Saburi has recovered from coronavirus. He however said the law will take its course over the matter that saw several county government officers including the Kilifi County governor Amason Kingi go into quarantine for exposure to the virus. Saburi is facing charges of failing to self-quarantine after returning form trip to Berlin and compromising the health of his county officials after he attended many official county functions.
There are now four complete recoveries from Covid-19, including Brenda Cherotich and Brian Orinda who held a televised meeting with President Uhuru Kenyatta yesterday. The first COVID 19 was a announced by the president on the 25th of March.
The irate Health CS however lamented that Kenyans on social media had trivialized the government’s efforts in the recovery of Brenda and Brian yesterday.
“Instead of of people re-energizing their effort, and raising alert levels (of the virus)it is shocking that some have decided to make fun and brand our effort as a PR exercise. Really? a PR exercise? Why would a government, in collaboration with the World Health Organization WHO and other intergovernmental organizations, international organizations decide to make a PR exercise with two innocent Kenyans? It is unpalatable! It is archaic and retrogressive for anyone to trivialize the lives of Kenyans, even one Kenyan.”
“I appeal to the media not to slight these matters. And I appeal to our enforcement agencies to arrest social media users. It is wrong and it should not happen”.
Meanwhile, the Health Cabinet Secretary has announced that local manufacturers have passed the approvals needed to begin making face masks and PPEs locally for use in preventing the spread of coronavirus. Kagwe instructed those making face masks locally to sell them affordably to Kenyans,, even as he maintained that all matatus, motorbikes and tuktuk passengers will henceforth be required to use face masks .