As was predicted, our government doesn’t seem to be exactly ready for the coronavirus pandemic or they are huge believers in fake news of the virus not affecting black people or they have no funds or they are functionally inept when it comes to health issues.
Incompetency should be at the top of the natural list, and it will even get worse as time moves ahead. You see, one patient is admitted, this patient was traveling around, came into close contact with 22 people, of the 22 people, two are infected, these two came into contact with more, you get where this is going? then again the remaining 20 need to also be isolated because symptoms may develop later, staying ahead of the infection curve is critical if you are going to put infections at manageable levels.
Issue two.
PSV transport is doing more harm than good, it's spreading the risk everywhere by actually propagating safety while there is none, if someone who is sick travels in a PSV it will be almost impossible to trace the fellow passengers since they do not know each other and would never know if they may have come into contact with an infected passenger. Then again other methods to trace passengers may be too costly.
Another issue is that most Kenyans think its a conspiracy by the devil or such theories, propagating other stories about us not being affected because we are strong and black is not helping but is easily believable by the multitudes who do not think much into it.
Following the Italian situation, the covid19 virus is already spreading around, the mitigation measures need to be taken now and in a tough way to avoid replicating the situation in Italy.
stop travel, stop PSV operations now, this should be first before anything else, then slowly introduce measures to ensure supplies continue.
what happened in Italy is the same and expected thing that may happen here, once cases shoot up, most Nairobi residents will start traveling to the village, spreading the disease like wildfire.
It's important to prepare for this situation now before its too late again, fear and panic are not a good mix for the masses. Proper isolation measures should be in place, proper training now should be continuing for the nurses, doctors, ambulance operators, and security providers. Toll-free numbers should be up and proper guidance on how to handle suspect infections.
There is a reason why you need to call in advance before visiting a hospital, furthermore, you should be collected from home rather than making way to a random hospital and infecting more people while on the way there. The advice being put across by MoH is skewed because it will increase the workload for them when cases start shooting up.
Although hoping for the best, when medical personnel start getting infected it will be a little late to manage the situation, Kenya has not managed a pandemic before, they need to get on top of this fast, it's not a position of strength when on the morning after a corona-virus situation update we get news about nurses going on strike in an isolation hospital.
A mistake being done is allocating effort to arrest individuals spreading fake news via Facebook or what's app, this should not be the case, if the government dedicates enough resources in giving timely information and truths then it naturally gets ahead of any fake news, concentrating on those spreading other news is dedicating resources where they are not needed, people will spread whatever news comes their way, not out of malice but out of concern that the information is going to help someone else.
Some steps that can be taken Now
Get your act together on disseminating information in a timely and regular way
Create infographics to educate the public on this virus.
Train nurses and doctors on standard practices while giving them safety equipment.
Prepare security apparatus on quarantine procedures and their own safety.
Provide an easily memorable toll-free number or hotline for citizens.
Provide short video guides that are easy to share.
Prepare parliament on New laws to be enacted during this period.
Waiver utility bills for citizens as soon as possible.
