After a short business trip to Paris and London at the beginning of March I returned to Kenya to spend 14 days in self-isolation just in case.... (Kenya had no cases when I returned though has since reported 1 case). Food is being delivered... 8.30am breakfast, 12.30pm lunch, 6.30 pm dinner. My working days basically resolves sitting at a desk all day, occasionally getting up to get water, go the balcony for some fresh air (unfortunately no sunshine, since the balcony is in the shade) or move position. Much of the day is spent on the phone as well. In the evenings I try to move 2m away to the sofa to read or watch TV and not work all day.
I'm getting a good night sleep each night since there is no time wasted commuting, no time spend having to prepare any food, no time even having to sort any kids out! Yesterday I finally decided i need to do some exercise and have been doing the 7-minute workout two or three times each day. It's surprisingly good actually.
7 days since I left Europe I feel perfectly fine, but will do the second week before rejoining my family and returning to the office. The office has taken insane precautions--I guess Huawei has experienced the worst of it in China already and is applying those lessons here.
Its strange that Kenya has had so few cases; and it is possible the hot, dry, weather has helped. There is not so many people arriving from countries with the disease anyway (compared to other countries, Kenya only really has one major airport and around 2 flights per day from each major city in Europe, with less from Asia, though more from the big middle eastern airports). It is likely that limited testing means there are more people with the virus going undetected, so maybe in a week or two the numbers of people who actually get tested in hospital will jump.
The country has taken preventative measures by banning public events and wants all visitors into the country to self-isolate (like I am doing), though I don't think they are enforcing that but they definitely should (having said that I suppose almost all international travel has basically stopped now anyway)!. Maybe if Europe can get control of the crisis in the next 4 weeks, and if Kenya can keep the cases down in that time, things might be much easier. Of course, if Europe can't control it for a few months it will be even harder to stop if spreading here.
The economic consequences in Kenya will mostly be from the tourism and conferences industries which are significant. Of course a general slow-down will happen from lower trade, but once countries enter a full lock-down then i suppose economically things get really bad. Hopefully that won't happen here, but the next week might be critical. If there really are few other cases in the country reported by next weekend, and that the identified case hadn't spread it too far, and if Europe begins to take control, then we might be ok... fingers crossed!
Having said that Rwanda is taking no chances. After their first case, they immediately closed all schools and offices. It should work in preventing the virus but it will of course come at an economic cost, and how long will they have to keep them shut for? Maybe it is the smart thing; maybe Kenya should do the same, but the economies here are very fragile, government's already indebted.
Then again the healthcare system is also very fragile, and would really have no chance of dealing with a full-blown pandemic like Italy. A lot of debates happening in Kenya about which route do go down. Indeed the UK seems to have initially decided not to be too dramatic but may rapidly change course in the next couple of days.
Some Kenyans also feel that trust in government is low, infrastructure is poor, culturally people can't stop socialising and mixing, and that a shut-down might not work very well anyway. Remember of course that very few people buy food from supermarkets, just local markets or their own farms; that very few people are in the formal economy/employment and certainly can't work from home (though ironically a large percent are already unemployed or under-employed; but not being able to earn whatever little they do earn would of course have catastrophic impacts and there are not very good safety net systems).
Meanwhile communication to the public is not that good, a lot of misinformation is spreading, there was some minor panic shopping on Friday, and throughout all of it, since I am shut inside I can't tell what is really happening... on the streets, with transport, with shops. I just know it will slow down my work a lot, even once I am back in the office, as a lot resolves around various events of which several were planned for the next couple of months (and presumably won't take place), which will just be frustrating.
Times are very interesting indeed.
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