Bloggers and users in the social media have been warned to forthwith desist from making a mockery of the efforts the government was making to mitigate the rate of coronavirus infections.
Cabinet Secretary Ministry of Health, Mutahi Kagwe riled at those propagating falsehood saying their wayward communication were counterproductive to efforts to save lives against the highly contagious pandemic.
He decried that a section of Kenyans had deliberately trivialized governments efforts in the fight against the viral disease to gain undue point in social circles instead of re-energizing efforts to raise levels alertness..
Yesterday the government informed Kenyans that two young people who were case number 1 and 2 of the confirmed coronavirus cases had recovered from the deadly disease.
The two, Brenda Cherotich and Brian Orinda had also appeared publicly during a live video conference with President Uhuru Kenyatta after they had been cleared to rejoin their families after turning negative to the COVID 19 virus.
“It is shocking that some have decided to make fun and brand our efforts a PR exercise! Really? Why would the Government, collaborating with International Organizations play games with a disease that has caused so much global destruction on the lives of people?”, the CS said
Its unpalatable and retrogressive for anybody to trivialize the lives of Kenyans even one, Kagwe said and appealed to the media not to slight the matter and at the same time called upon enforcement agencies to arrest social media abusers. It is wrong and it should not happen”.
“As a government we are continuously improving our level of response to mitigate our rate of infections and I am deeply saddened that a section of Kenyans have taken to the social media to make a mockery of our efforts”, he said
He spoke of changing behaviour and attitude if the country has to cut the transmission of the virus. “Had we not placed the people who came into the country into mandatory quarantine, the story would be different now!”, he said and also calling on them to practice social distancing even where they are quarantined.
CS Kagwe thanked those County Governments that have scaled up precautionary measures through random screening at their borders urging all the counties to heighten their level of preparedness.
“ we are still urging all to take extreme precautionary measures wherever you are, by observing the highest standard of hygiene, social distancing, as well as any other measures the Government has announced to you”, he said
Beginning today, the CS further said that Port Health Teams have embarked on disinfecting the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport for the next one week and that the exercise will be extended to all other airports.
The Government starting last Sunday embarked on mass testing exercise for the 2,050 people that were placed under mandatory quarantine in various hotels and designated Government Facilities.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the current global reality is that close to one million people have so far been infected, and 47,000 have lost their lives. As we speak, Italy has recorded 110,574 cases, with 13,155 deaths, and 16,847 recoveries. Spain has recorded 104,118 cases with 9,387 deaths, and 22,647 recoveries.
By Wangari Ndirangu
State Puts Social Media Abusers on Notice
