Enforce coronavirus containment regulations

The gravity of the current Covid-19 situation forced President Uhuru Kenyatta to convene his today’s meeting with governors to chart the way forward. 

A pandemic that earlier projections showed would peak in September, then gradually wither has refused to go away. Instead, Covid-19 has found a new home in counties and the results are shocking. Positive cases have gone up sharply, and so have the fatalities.

How did we get here when indications in August showed that the worst was behind us? In retrospect, the relaxation of containment measures earlier put in place to check the spread of the disease could have been the exact point at which Kenyans became careless.

Even with that being the case, politicians cannot escape blame for the surge in Covid-19 cases. It has become the norm, rather than the exception for politicians to hold political rallies across the country in direct defiance of the social distancing rule.

Besides, the people who attend the rallies rarely wear the mandatory masks, and this includes the leaders themselves. Such a cavalier attitude by leaders must be condemned for giving a bad example to the people they are supposed to guide as role models. A resurgence of Covid-19 cases in most Western countries has led to the reintroduction of containment measures, and we must as well do the same.

While lockdown initially worked well in keeping the pandemic in check, it might not be as effective today because of community spreading currently happening. County hospitals and isolation centres are overrun, stressing the need for alternative, yet stringent measures to curb the spread of the coronavirus.

The government’s enforcement of anti Covid-19 health guidelines is not optional, it must be carried out with zeal if our ultimate goal is to triumph against coronavirus.