Kenya extends curfew to another month

Kenya has extended its coronavirus curfew for another thirty days.

Bars and nightclubs will stay closed for another month, but the number of people allowed to attend weddings, funerals and other events has been increased.

The Kenyan curfew from 9pm to 4am was introduced on the twenty fifth of March.

The Kenyan president Uhuru Kenyatta announced the extension on national TV on Wednesday.

"Our health experts have indicated that levels of positivity rate country-wide have fallen from a high of 13% in June to 8% in August 2020," Kenyatta said.

“This crisis has however began to percolate to the counties. The new frontier of this invisible enemy is increasingly shifting to the counties and to our rural areas,” he added.

The curfew aims at lowering these figures even more, to 5%, as recommended by the World Health Organization.

Kenyatta said infections are slowing in Nairobi and Mombasa, but the pandemic has now reached the counties and rural areas.

Kenya has 33,016 cases of the novel coronavirus and 564 people have died of COVID-19, Kenyatta said.

The outbreak has also hit the economy, but so far it has still performed better than expected.