Nairobi — Kenya extended the night curfew and several other COVID-19 measures in efforts to tame the spread of the virus as schools re-open since closure in March last year.
The announcement was made by Interior Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiangi, who cited an Executive Order issued by President Uhuru Kenyatta.
“The President has issued an Executive Order extending some of the containment measures to ensure that the eco-system within which our children are going to school remains manageable,” he said, “so the President has extended the curfew days and several containment measures.”
The measures extended Saturday include closure of bars by 9pm as directed by the President on November 4 when he revised the night curfew to start at 10 pm to 4 am.
At the time, he also ordered civil servants aged above 50 years and anyone with compromised immunity to work from home.
President Kenyatta directed all government meetings to be held virtually so as to protect public servants and members of the public visiting their offices.
Kenya recorded 64 new COVID-19 cases Saturday, marking a sustained decline as schools prepared to reopen fully for physical learning.
Kenya reopened schools partially in October 2020 for Form 4, Class 8 candidates and Grade 4 following closure in March 2020 when the first case was detected.
Statistics released on Saturday by Health Cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe showed hope of more decline in positive cases.
Kagwe said the 64 cases were detected fro 1,852 samples raising the caseload in the country to 96,768.
He also announced for more fatalities of patients who succumbed to the disease in what raised the cumulative fatalities in the country to 1,685.
Schools in the country were set to reopen fully on Monday, under strict COVID-19 guidelines.
Education Cabinet Secretary George Magoha said learners must have marks at all times, but warned schools against forcing them to have sanitisers.
“The situation where teachers are asking students to bring large quantities of sanitisers shall not be allowed, because we don’t want to have a situation where you have too much sanitisers which will be used for other things,” Magoha said when he toured Kibera Secondary School during an inspection tour.