Twenty-four hour positivity rate at 11 percent as 773 people test positive for covid-19

Medical practitioners at work during (Covid -19) mass-testing at the Olympic Primary School, Kibra Nairobi County, on May 26, 2020. [Elvis Ogina, Standard]

Kenya has today reported 155,165 cases of Coronavirus after 773 more people tested positive for the disease in the last 24 hours.

This is from a sample size of 7,036 that was tested in the same period translating to a positivity rate of 11.0 per cent.

A statement from the health Ministry indicates that from the new cases, 754 are Kenyans while 19 are foreigners with 450 being males and 323 females.

The youngest is a seven-day-old infant with the oldest being 109 years.

The statement notes that so far 1,631,699 tests have been done since the first case was reported in March 2020.

The statement by Health CS Mutahi Kagwe further indicates that 726 patients have recovered from the disease bringing the total number of recoveries to 106,093.

Of these recoveries, 77,308 are from Home Based Care and Isolation while 28,785 are from various health facilities across the country.

“Sadly 23 deaths have been reported in the last 24 hours with 10 having occurred on diverse dates within the last one month, while 13 are late deaths reported after conducting facility record audits,”  Kagwe said.

He said this now pushes the number of fatalities to 2,583.

Kagwe said 1,469 patients are currently admitted in various health facilities while 6,795 are on Home Based Isolation and Care.

Some 236 patients are in the Intensive Care Unit-ICU of whom 53 are on Ventilatory support, 153 on supplemental oxygen and 30 under observation.

Kagwe notes that another 162 are separately on supplementary oxygen with 150 of them being in general wards and 12 in the High Dependency Units-HDU.

As of today, April 23, 2021, Kagwe said 802,760 people have been vaccinated against the disease across the country.

Of this number, those aged above 58 years are leading with 462,256 followed by healthcare workers with 150,465, teachers with 123,262 and security officers with 66,777.

Kagwe said as of April 22, 2021, a total of 1,080,000 doses had been distributed to the regional depots leaving a balance of 40,000 doses at the Kitengela Central stores.

Kagwe said this coming weekend marks 30 days since President Uhuru Kenyatta announced the latest containment measures.

“The results of the measures are encouraging because the positivity rate has gone down from about 20 per cent to about 16 per cent. The numbers of patients relying on oxygen have dropped, ICU occupancy rate is slowly decreasing and the fatality rate has also come down,” Kagwe said.

He said while is good news, the precious gains need to be guarded jealously because the figures fluctuate.

“We cannot celebrate, however, as we mourn the loss of our loved ones who have succumbed,” he said.

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