The daily positive cases in Kenya are on an upward trend. The highest daily count of 278 cases was reported on 27/06/2020. The total confirmed cases so far are 6,070.
In Africa, the five countries with the highest number of confirmed cases are South Africa with 138,134 cases, Egypt with 65,188 cases, Nigeria with 24,567 cases, Ghana with 16,742 cases and Algeria with 13,273 cases.
Testing
The number of confirmed cases could be attributed to the total number of tests conducted by a country. For example, by 27th June 2020, South Africa had tested 1.53 Million people. Ghana had tested 288,465 people by 25th June 2020, Nigeria had tested 130,164 people by 28th June 2020 while Kenya had 165,196 tests by 29th June 2020. The implication here is that the positive cases in Kenya could increase with increased number of tests. Kenya will therefore have to increase the number of tests across the country incase the government decides to remove its lock down restrictions in the identified hot spots. Early detection of positive cases and proper contact tracing are very important in the recovery of infected cases.
Death Rate
On the death rate, Kenya has registered 143 fatalities, translating to a death rate of 2.36%. South Africa which has the highest number of confirmed cases in Africa at 138,134, has a lower death rate of 1.78%. One of the highest death rates in Africa has been reported in Algeria at 6.78% from 897 deaths. Ghana has one of the lowest reported death rate of 0.67% from 112 deaths. Egypt has a death rate of 4.28% from 2,789 deaths while Nigeria has a death rate of 2.30% from 565 deaths. Kenya is therefore doing relatively well in managing the positive cases compared to other African countries.
Recovery
Kenya’s recovery rate is currently at 32.47% from 1,971 recoveries. This is a much lower recovery rate compared to statistics from other African countries. South Africa has a recovery rate of 49.90 % from 68,925 recoveries, Algeria has a recovery rate of 70.60% from 9,371 recoveries while Ghana and Nigeria have recovery rates of 75.98 % and 36.66% respectively. Kenya needs to raise the recovery rate to a comfortable figure above 60%. This will help the country release pressure on the health system and also motivate the easing of the existing lockdown restrictions.
Infections Prediction
How will Kenyan COVID-19 infections look like in the coming days? The answer may not be definite since the spread of the virus is determined by the nature of community response to safety strategies given by MoH such as regular hand washing, social distancing and staying at home. However, as shown in the prediction graph below, the daily infections in Kenya are going to increase as time goes by. It is predicted that in the near future, the daily cases in Kenya will soon be above 300 with the possibility of a maximum of about 400. This conclusion is based on the assumption that the testing samples will be optimally selected.
The Peak
Has Kenya reached it’s peak? The simple answer is no. As a matter of fact, Kenya will hit the 10,000 mark of confirmed cases within the month of July 2020. As seen in the graph below for cummulative confirmed cases, the positive cases are still on an upward trend. A peak will be experienced when the cummulative cases will start stagnating around a certain figure over time. With the current trend of infections, the earliest time Kenya will reach its peak is around September 2020. It should also be noted that incase the lockdown is relaxed, Kenya will definitely experience a surge in the infections before the situation stabilises. This has happened in other countries such as South Africa, Germany and China. Since COVID-19 has spread to most of the counties in Kenya, the focus now should be on the level of preparedness by the county governments in implementing the MoH guidelines and the avalaibility of functioning and COVID-19 equiped hospitals.
This report is based on the data from the Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering (JHU CCSE) as at 9:00am E.A.T on 29/06/2010.
