The Ministry of Health has stated that the next three weeks will be critical in determining whether the state will lift the remaining COVID-19 containment measures or not.
The Ministry’s Director General Dr. Patrick Amoth said the declining positivity rate recorded over the past one week is an indication of progress in containing the virus. But Dr. Amoth stressed that it is still early to declare whether the infection curve has been flattened or not.
“For the past one week or so you have noticed a decreasing positivity rate which as of today stands at 6%. That tells you we are making progress but we have not hit the magical 5% which we need to hit and sustain for two weeks before we can actually say we are flattening the curve,” Dr. Amoth said.
He added that the country must sustain the positivity rate at 5% for two weeks, for the MOH to declare that the curve flattened. Remaining restrictions can only be lifted if the curve is flattened.
“The next three to four weeks will be critical to determine whether we have hit the magical 5% and we sustain that positivity rate in which case we can conclusively say we have flattened the curve and therefore we can be able to lift the remaining measures,” said Dr. Amoth.
He, however, maintained that the Ministry is still working with the earlier projections that the pandemic could peak between August and September.