Thank God, it's not so bad, after all

Reality is; it is never too serious

Dr. Abdi (left), the Medical Officer for Critical Services at Embu Teaching and Referral Hospital poses with Embu County Public Service Board Commissioner Kithaka Njeru (center) and Dr. Iliwa, the Medical Superintendent at Runyenjes Level 4 Hospital after Health CS Mutahi Kagwe's address to the nation from Embu County. The Minister recognized the two Doctors, among others, for exemplary service rendered in the fight against Corona virus.

In my line of duty, I am regularly required to be on top of every little matter that might be of macroeconomic impact. 

As such, I often seek and get opportunities to listen to what people say concerning both National and County governments’ performance on issues of public interest and vise-versa, then escalate and/or disseminate the information accordingly.

Presently, the novel corona virus has become the one thing which everything else seems to be hinged upon. Apparently, the government has put it upon the citizenry to curb the spread of the pandemic by religiously observing government directives on the same.

President Uhuru Kenyatta, conscious of the fact that all eyes are on him to steer Kenya towards freedom from the plague, has stated that the steps his government shall take will depend on the rate of infection in relation to patterns of interaction.

Statisticians working on the problem have probably advised the government concerning the curve on which focus should be concentrated. That would be the curve representing the number of people who die from Covid-19 over a given period of time in relation to total recoveries.

Research has revealed that getting infected with the virus doesn’t necessarily result in death. In fact, patients who have recovered from the virus are more than those who have succumbed. The correlation of recoveries, fatalities and new infections should be a major determinant in all executive decisions concerning the future of this country.

Therefore, it would be prudent for the government to engage relevant mass communication channels to instill hope in the people by highlighting the above fact. Here is an example of a logical argument to back up this line of reasoning: 

Out of 2,474 cases tested on 20 July, 418 came up positive. During the same period, 494 patients recovered while 4 succumbed. On 21 July, 3651 tests were done (1177 more), but the number of new infections went down to 397 while recoveries rose to 642 and fatalities reduced to 2. On 22 July, out of 4275 tested, 637 turned up positive (owing to higher number tested) with 499 recoveries and 10 fatalities.  

During this 3 day period, the total number of new positive cases is 1452 while recoveries are 1635 (recoveries are higher than infections). The number of deaths during the period is only 16. What does this tell?

It tells that if this trend continues, with the number of recoveries exceeding that of new infections, then with time we will have almost everyone having been infected and duly recovered; leading to herd immunity. So you see, it it is not too bad, after all.