This archive report was first published on 25 June 2020.
On June 25, 2020, President Uhuru Kenyatta addressed a virtual meeting of the national and county governments coordinating summit, attended by Deputy President Dr. William Ruto and representatives of religious and business sectors.
During the meeting, the President emphasized that the decision to reopen the country's economy would be informed by the level of preparedness by the devolved units to respond to Covid-19 infections.
According to the President, the decision will largely be determined by the counties' capacity to effectively respond to new cases of Covid-19 imported into their territories.
“County readiness to respond to new imported cases of infection will largely determine our national readiness to re-open the country as a whole,” the President said.
He added, “I say this because the nation is the sum total of all the 47 counties. If the counties have met the necessary thresholds, then the nation will be ready to re-open.”
During the meeting, a progress report on the rollout of the minimum Covid-19 response measures required ahead of the re-opening of the economy was presented by Kakamega Governor Wycliffe Oparanya, who is also the current Chairperson of the Council of Governors.
According to Governor Oparanya, counties had attained a total of 6,898 isolation beds against the national target of 30,500 units.
He also reported that 12 counties had met the 300 per county isolation beds threshold while 34 devolved units were on course to meet the target within the month.
On human resources, Governor Oparanya reported that a total of 16,914 health personnel had been trained on Covid-19 management among them 59,449 community health volunteers.
Health CS Mutahi Kagwe cautioned against the re-opening of the economy before the response preparedness threshold agreed upon is fully met, citing countries that had rushed to re-open their economies without having proper Covid-19 containment protocols in place.
