oh dear, 2 months since the last update! Well since our last update the number of tests in Kenya has increased a little... to around 6,000 give or take, per day. The numbers testing positive had increased from the 5% of June to 10% then 15% and up to 20% a few weeks ago. However in the last 2 weeks they have dropped back down to around 10%. This does not really reveal a huge amount as the numbers tested are not proportionate and we (the public) don't know who of those tested may be health workers, truck drivers, flight crew, contacts of those already positive, or just random people. However if it continues like this it might imply that basically there's a degree of herd immunity that has been achieved and thus in another couple of months we may have overcome the worst of it.
Despite the lack of testing the number of deaths has not increase too much (around 5 per day give or take) and the hospitals are coping so far. Though we can presume there may be unreported COVID-19 deaths, it may not be thousands, so we can be fairly relieved. Have we been lucky because much of the population spend most of their time outside, that most are on rural farms, that most are young, most are healthy, and there are few overweight, diabetic etc or for some other reason? Maybe we'll find out some day.
Certainly most regular people have stopped wearing masks, or are not wearing them properly, and most of the handwashing stations seem to be barely used nowadays. The spacing on public buses isn't being followed so much any more, the restrictions on travelling outside of Nairobi or Mombasa (that were implemented for several weeks earlier in the year and may well have helped then in delaying the spread) have been stopped and there's more transport now -it employs many people and also facilitates more tourism. International flights restarted in August (domestic flights restarted in mid July) and a lot of the middle class have taken advantage, at least to restart domestic tourism. The evening curfew remains, which is to avoid too much drinking and partying that directly may cause rapid spreading, or indirectly reduce hospital admissions from traffic accidents or violence. By July all restaurants had reopened and up to 7pm or 8pm for sit-down meals (with some spacing etc). Thankfully many of the export commodities have recovered as the European and Asian markets have re-opened.
It was decided in July that schools which had remained closed since end of March would not re-open until January 2021 and all students, at least though in public schools, would be expected to repeat the entire school year. The thinking was that most students had already missed 4 months, which would be hard to catch up on, and that it would be very hard to implement social distancing and hygiene for the rest of the year (and the teachers who could be the most vulnerable would likely refuse to teach anyway). In theory there is some teaching ongoing through TV and radio broadcasts as well as videos online, but few students are benefitting.
Unfortunately keeping schools (and kindergartens) closed does make it harder for parents to go to work (many of the private kindergartens have re-opened, though probably illegal). For children in private schools, in order to charge fees and keep their teachers employed (since only the public school teachers are being paid for doing nothing), and which are quite important in Kenya with over a third of the population attending private schools (which range from the cheap to the expensive), there is some online video teaching going on. None-the-less some of the international families have packed off to another country for school-based learning for the rest of the year (this is the case for us - Andrea and the girls have been in Germany since mid-June and started in German schools last week).
On another note, it is incredible to think of the bigger picture of this year, from the debts racked up, the role of technology, the international disputes, the role of "experts" that were previously criticized so much in many countries recently, the strangeness of the unpredictability of the virus and live overall, the impact on relationships, education, social interactions, the positive impacts on the environment, the new thinking of health and hygiene, the incredible speed of vaccine development, and the recognition of vulnerable international supply chains especially of critical health goods. And so much more.... of course the media have reported on all these things for months now. We've all learned new words, new phrases, new rules (that keep changing) and it really is a "new normal" at least for this year.
Any next year, or whenever this is sort of over, what will the "new normal" be? Will retail, services, offices, tourism, education, healthcare, international relations and more besides have changed permanently? How are countries going to deal with debt, deal with economic recoveries, how long will there be pain for, what will the impact be on politics and institutions (especially in the US)? So many questions. So much time to discuss them!
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