Decision to test all patients visiting hospitals for coronavirus welcome

Despite the many interventions put in place by the government to slow down infections, the  coronavirus (Sars-CoV-2) cases continue to rise steadily.

The number of cases increased to 715 after the Health ministry announced that 15 more people had tested positive.

This unrelenting surge in infections should be a warning to all and sundry that the situation will not change soon unless we start doing things markedly differently.

That's why the decision by the government to start testing all patients visiting hospitals countrywide for Sars-CoV-2 is important.

In fact, this test should be among the first, if not the very first, to be done immediately a patient steps into a health facility.

This is important not only for the patients, who would immediately be put under care, but also for the medical workers. Our frontline healthcare workers have been contracting the virus in the course of their work.

Last week, the Health ministry revealed that 34 health workers had tested positive for coronavirus.

This is worrying. We would have no one to take care of us if the health workers, the soldiers in this war, become victims. We must guard them by not only providing them with protective gear but also through testing everyone visiting hospitals.

The unfortunate thing is that when health workers contract the virus, they have the potential of unwittingly infecting other people as they interact with many patients every day.

There is another advantage of testing all patients visiting hospitals; it will give the government a rough idea of the level infection in various parts of the country and help it design interventions accordingly.

Testing all patients will also resuscitate public confidence in hospitals. Notably, hospital visits have gone down drastically since the first case of Covid-19 was reported as people fear they might contract the virus in these facilities. Testing will ensure the infected are isolated, and thus assuage public fears.

But besides hospitals, the government must step up mass testing across the country as this, as has been pointed out, is a critical way of combating this monster.

Importantly, however, everyone must do what the Health ministry expects of us. Huddling inside locked pubs with friends and beer is the height idiocy, just as is congregating in places of worship against the law. Such acts can only lead to more pain and death for Kenyans.