It’s not yet time for celebration

Celebrations were in the air as President Uhuru was over and done with his speech on Monday 6th this month. The President has opened county borders and rescinded the lockdown in Nairobi, Mombasa and Mandera Counties. People everywhere are talking of traveling home, most of these people coming from the previously Covid-19 marked zones.

The question we ought to ask ourselves is whether we are ready to take this pandemic to our villages, where we have our aged people. People who, according to the doctors, can easily contract this dreadful disease. Will Covid-19 let us be?? This should be our greatest of concerns.

Even though the President promised to study the patterns and spread of this disease in the next 21 days and that he won’t hesitate to ‘claw back’ the lockdown at a zero option should the situation deteriorate. I think this will be ineffective since the disease shall have diffused into the suburbs of our beloved Nation. What will be the reason for the lockdown after we’ve killed our own people?

Trust me fellow citizens, it was better while people living in the Covid-19 red marked zones were under lockdown. The economy of the country was affected during that period yes, but tell me, can we trade our lives with the economy of the country? You and I know that the answer is no. Am sure no one would trade their life with a derailed economy, including those who advocated for the lifting of the lockdown. If it was my call to make, I couldn’t have lifted this lockdown until this Covid-19 enemy issue was neutralized. It’s our lives in the line here. Just a little wait couldn’t have done us any harm. Waiting does not make us cowards.

Opening the churches and mosques was not a bad idea, but the timing is dangerous. Seriously speaking fellow citizens, which church service can be done within an hour? I mean, come on, we are not just going to pray and leave the church, that we can do even at home, and we’ve been doing that for the past three months. It’s also ironical that we won’t be having church leaders like Pastors, Fathers, Achbishops, Imams, Sheikhs among other in the church services. Aren’t most of them, especially our Sheikhs above 58 years of age? Just imagine a church with no one to direct them but their fellow ‘amatures’. Hope that is not offensive.

That however isn’t the danger. The danger is controlling the number of people coming for church services. How on earth are people going to maintain 100 people per service. Whereas that might be possible, how can people maintain the social distance in churches, especially churches playing musical instruments i.e drums and people dance!! Now there is the danger. If am being honest, opening churches , markets and travel is a way of sentencing us to death.

As at July 10, 2020 there are 9448 confirmed cases of COVID-19 throughout Kenya, with 2733 recovered patients and 181 related deaths. That withstaning, since lockdown was lifted, we are realizing huge numbers of Covid-19 infected people. If the lockdown remain lifted, this number is daily going to shoot and by the time the President’s 21 days are over, most of us are going to be positive, others dead.

Although places like bars, political rallies, international air travel among others remain closed, though for some time, revoking the lockdown might – according to me – come with a price we might not be ready to pay. But what is done is done. And now the weight of this disease has been taken off the government’s shoulder and has been fully placed up on each and every citizen.

Each and everyone of us should therefore take it upon ourselves as a duty and will to defend and protect ourselves, our families and our environment from this enemy. We need to minimize unnecessary movements, delay upcountry travel and adhere to protocols. Every citizen shouldn’t celebrate yet and instead be more concerned than before about the grand re-opening. IT IS NOT YET UHURU!