Kenya has suspended all in-person meetings and public gatherings in a bid to contain a resurgence of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
The government on Friday directed private and public-sector employers to let their workers work from home unless they were classified as essential services.
Minister of Health, Mutahi Kagwe, who announced the new COVID-19 restrictions in a televised address, said, “In this regard, all government, including intergovernmental meetings and conferences, should henceforth be converted to either virtual or postponed in the coming 30 days.”
Kenya has seen an increase in COVID-19 infections in recent weeks. The surge has been attributed to the easily transmissible Delta variant. As of Thursday, the Ministry of Health said it had registered a total of 200,109 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 3,910 deaths.
Kagwe tasked politicians to be part of the solution, noting that their rallies are turning out to be “super spreaders” of the disease.
“We are asking those in politics to be part of the solution instead of creating epicentres for the spread of the disease,” he said. “There is no point in calling all these rallies, and then we follow with all these deaths.”
The Health Minister stated further that the nationwide night curfew will now be strictly enforced by the police from 10 pm to 4 am local time.
Churches and mosques have been instructed to strictly enforce guidelines regarding a third of capacities with social distance to prevent the spread of the virus.
Kenya has vaccinated 1.7 million people of whom 647,393 adults are fully vaccinated.
The country will receive 700,000 doses of AstraZeneca shots from Britain, Greece, and Latvia next week, and a further 1.76 million doses from Pfizer and BioNTech in about a fortnight, once storage facilities are built.