1,395 people have today tested positive for coronavirus raising the country’s total caseload to 55,192.
At the same time, 15 have died, pushing the national fatality tally to 996.
In a statement on Saturday, Health CS Mutahi Kagwe (pictured) said the Ministry had tested 7,635 samples pushing the cumulative tests to 695,087.
Of the new cases 879 are male and 516 are female with the oldest patient being 94-years-old and the youngest a four-month-old baby.
As per county distribution, Nairobi is leading with 569 cases, followed by Nakuru and Kiambu with 149 and 148 cases respectively.
On a positive note; the CS said 1,087 patients had recovered from the disease, 1,019 are from the Home-based care programme and 69 were discharged from various health facilities.
Currently, 55 patients are in the Intensive Care Unit. 32 of whom are on ventilatory support and 23 on supplemental oxygen. 45 patients are separately on supplementary oxygen and not in the ICU, while 11 are in High Dependency Unit (HDU).
In a fresh bid to curb the rising infections, President Uhuru Kenyatta has convened a meeting to deliberate the country’s Covid-19 situation in the wake of increasing deaths and positive cases.
The meeting, which will take place on November 4, is the sixth extraordinary session of the national and county governments coordinating summit.
This session, compared to the previous during the pandemic, comes earlier than what has been the tradition. Usually, the president has been convening these meetings barely hours to the expiry of the imposed containment measures.
As per his last address, on September 28, such a meeting was expected around November 28 considering the curfew hours had been reviewed and extended by another 60 days.
In the statement from State House Spokesperson Kanze Dena, it was noted that the high numbers are the reason for the meeting.
“The extraordinary session has been convened in light of the resurgence of Covid-19 infections across our nation, as exhibited by the fact that Kenya recorded its highest number of Covid-19 monthly fatalities in October 2020,” reads the statement.
In June, President Kenyatta set aside a decision to reopen the economy or relax the measures when the modelling showed a worst case scenario of 40,000 deaths and 300,000 cases by November if the measures were relaxed by 40 per cent.
If relaxed by 20 per cent, the scenario will be 200,000 infections with 30,000 deaths by December.
“The session shall also review the efficacy of the containment measures in place, as well as the impact of the easing of the restrictions that were in place,” the statement at the time read.
The president, in the statement, called on Kenyans to continue correct wearing of masks in public places, washing of hands and keeping social distance as the best weapon to tackle the virus.
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