This archive report was first published on 31 July 2020.
Kenya has resumed international flights after a four-month suspension due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the country has excluded several major nations from a list of countries whose nationals will be allowed in.
According to Transport Cabinet Secretary James Macharia, the initial list of countries includes Canada, Switzerland, Japan, China, and South Korea outside of Africa. The list also includes Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, Uganda, Rwanda, Morocco, and Namibia.
Kenya has excluded the US, EU, and India from the list, which is based on the intensity of coronavirus cases in specific countries. The US has registered over four million infections and 153,000 deaths, while the UK had over 301,000 confirmed cases and about 45,000 deaths as of yesterday.
The travel curbs are expected to hurt Kenya's tourism and Kenya Airways, which had planned to ferry in passengers from the bulk of the countries not in the government list. Kenya Airways will only be able to bring in passengers from four of the 30 cities it had planned to serve.
Passengers coming in on international flights will be exempted from mandatory quarantine and the night movement restriction owing to curfew. However, passengers whose flight will arrive to Nairobi past the curfew hours will have to show proof by use of their boarding passes.
Kenya's COVID-19 cases jumped to 19,913 on Thursday after 788 new cases were reported from a sample of 5,521. International flights resumed on July 31, 2020, after four months of being suspended.
