The English variant is killing more people in Kenya than the first two waves of the virus. This is what emerges from the latest reports from the Kenya Medical Research Center, which is trying to understand the reasons for the resurgence of Covid-19 in the country.
In Nairobi in the last week there has been an average of twenty deaths every 24 hours, almost all in Nairobi, but there is a perception that the official accounts are lagging behind by several lives.
Yesterday, for example, in City Hall, Nairobi's City Hall alone, five employees were declared dead from Covid-19. An investigation by a national newspaper revealed that many other employees are positive and symptomatic and that the facility had not had functioning sanitisers at the entrance for some time.
According to KEMRI, by the end of June, the number of cases could reach a minimum of 530,000 to 1.7 million, depending on the country's response to the lockdown and the government's request not to relax its grip on the virus, now that its variants are becoming more contagious and lethal for Africans. In any case, the national research centre itself admits that many of these cases will remain unofficial.
"Underlying the observed epidemic, our projections say there will be an average of 1.1 million (0.53m-1.7m) infections in the first six months of 2021," KEMRI writes in the report, "with the vast majority of infections remaining undetected due to limitations on testing.
Yesterday, Health Minister Mutahi Kagwe announced that 902 people had tested positive for the coronavirus, out of 3,395 swabs analysed. The percentage thus rises to a very high 26.6%.
The total number of confirmed Covid-19 positive cases now stands at 131,116.
Of the cases, 829 are Kenyans, 73 are foreigners.
Kagwe announced that 18 patients had died of the disease in the last 24 hours but, as the Ministry said and confirmed, checks of facility records took place on different dates and the updated figures are therefore a kind of average. These official numbers, however, bring the cumulative mortality to 2,135.
Meanwhile another 407 patients have recovered from the disease in the last 24 hours. 237 have been declared free of isolation at home, while 170 have been discharged from various health facilities. The total number of recoveries now stands at 92,161.
1,270 patients are still in various health facilities, while 34,620 are in home isolation.
The number of patients in intensive care units continues to increase. There are now 137, 36 of them are on ventilatory support, 91 on supplementary oxygen and 10 are under observation.
Another 90 patients are on supplementary oxygen in other specific wards, while 78 of them are in general wards and 12 in the High Dependency Unit.
As for the distribution of cases within individual counties, Nairobi stands out with almost all the cases (707). It is followed by Nakuru with 40 positives, Uasin Gishu 39, Machakos 29, Kiambu 21, Kajiado 21, Kitui 12, Kilifi 9 and Mandera 5.