President Uhuru Kenyatta is scheduled to address the nation on March 12, 2021, Friday, in what many expect will be the announcement of a new raft of measures to beat COVID-19.
It would mark one year since the advent of the pandemic in the country when the Head of State will be making his address.
This comes against the backdrop of surging virus infections, deaths and hospital admissions that the government has conceded to be a third wave of COVID-19 infections.
Health Cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe on Wednesday warned that Kenyans could be staring at tougher containment measures.
“The sheer number itself tells you the whole story, the positivity rate that we are announcing at around 14 percent is also the highest since the last phase in November,” he said.
Since the beginning of March, the daily average daily positivity rate has stood at 9.4 percent, way above 5 percent, which the World Health Organization (WHO) recommends for a country to be on the path to recovery.
In the last 10 days alone, Kenya has recorded 42 deaths, which means, between 4 and 5 patients die every day because of the virus.
There are also concerns that hospitals could soon be overwhelmed, with 89 patients in intensive care units and 28 on supplementary oxygen.
This as the country recorded 713 new cases of coronavirus Wednesday, marking the highest number in a single day infections in 12 months.
The new infections were confirmed out of a sample size of 5,230, translating to a positivity rate of 13.6 percent, marking another record high.
Still, in the last 24 hours, 12 patients have succumbed to the virus, pushing the cumulative number of fatalities to 1,898.
