By Prof Gichuhi A. Waititu
The number of daily positive COVID-19 cases in Kenya is 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.
The number of confirmed cases could be attributed to the total number of tests done by a country. For example, by 27th June 2020, South Africa had tested 1.53 million people, by 25th June, Ghana had tested 288,465 people, Nigeria had tested 130,164 people by 28th June while Kenya had 165,196 tests by 29th June 2020. The implication here is that the positive cases in Kenya could increase with an increased number of tests. Kenya will, therefore, have to increase the number of tests across the country in case the government decides to remove the lockdown in the perceived hot spots. Early detection of positive cases and proper contact tracing are very important in the recovery of infected cases.
Kenya needs to raise the recovery rate to a comfortable figure above 60%. This will help the country to release the pressure from the health system and also motivate the possibility of relaxing the existing lockdown.
On the death rate, Kenya has had 143 deaths, translating to a death rate of 2.36%. South Africa is leading in Africa with 138,134 confirmed cases but with a 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 rates 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 quite well in managing positive cases compared to other African countries.
On the number of recoveries, Kenya’s recovery rate is currently at 32.47% from 1,971 recoveries. Compared to 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 9,371recoveries while Ghana and Nigeria have recovery rates of 75.98 % and 36.66% respectively. The recovery rate in Kenya is relatively low compared to other large economies in Africa. Kenya needs to raise the recovery rate to a comfortable figure above 60%. This will help the country to release the pressure from the health system and also inspire the possibility of relaxing the existing lockdown.
How will Kenyan COVID-19 infections look like in the next few days? The answer may not be definite since the spread of the virus is driven by the nature of the response from the community to the strategies given by the Ministry of Health (MoH) like regular handwashing, 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 to a maximum of about 400. This conclusion is based on the assumption that the testing samples will be optimally selected.
Has Kenya reached its peak? The simple answer is no. As a matter of fact, Kenya will, within the month of July 2020, hit the 10,000 mark. As seen in the graph below for cumulative confirmed cases, the positive cases are still on an upward trend. A peak will be experienced when the cumulative 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 in case the lockdown is relaxed, Kenya will definitely experience a surprise surge in the infections before the situation normalises. This has happened in other countries like 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 terms of implementing the MoH guidelines and having functioning and COVID-19 quipped hospitals.
This report is based on the data from the Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering (JHU CCSE) as at 9:00 am East African Time on 29/06/2010.
Prof Gichuhi A. Waititu is an Associate Professor of Statistics in the Department of Statistics and Actuarial Sciences at the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT), Kenya. He holds a BSc in Mathematics and Computer Science from JKUAT, MSc in Applied Statistics from JKUAT and PhD in Statistics from Kaiserslautern University in Germany.
This work is supported by the Heinrich-Böll Foundation.
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