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Christmas vacationers on the beach in Mombasa, Kenya: Without lockdown due to the Omicron wave
Photo: Gideon Maundu / AP
Suddenly everyone had the flu.
A Covid-19 test in Kenya's capital Nairobi costs a lot of money, and it can also bring a lot of circumstances: if the result is positive, quarantine, lost work.
So most of them left it with the flu and preferred not to ask.
In one of the better hospitals you get a little closer to the truth.
This is where the urban middle class goes and is more likely to be tested.
In the waiting room there is a lot of coughing, some doze to themselves.
Between Christmas and New Year's Eve, 70 percent of the corona tests were positive, says a treating doctor.
Even the official statistics, which should be taken with caution, showed a positive rate of 35 percent at the time.
Omikron has swept through Kenya like wildfire.
But the coronavirus variant did not leave a trace of devastation.
According to some researchers, the previous waves were already milder than in Europe - nevertheless they had quickly brought the ailing health system in Kenya to its limits.
When the delta variant rolled across the country, there was no longer any free intensive care bed in Nairobi.
In other parts of the country, oxygen was becoming scarce.
But at the moment it is not a problem to get a place in a Covid station - despite the record number of infections at the turn of the year.
"Admittedly, there have been admissions again since mid-December," says Shamsa Ahmed, head of the infection department at the MP Shah Hospital in Nairobi.
“But the difficult courses are rare.
They are all unvaccinated, some of them have died. «But the number of intensive care patients in Kenya is far below that of the previous waves.
The number of infections is now falling almost as rapidly as it was before Christmas. The country has come through the new wave without a lockdown or curfew. Unlike in South Africa, where at least a night curfew was imposed, there were hardly any significant measures to contain Omikron in Kenya. Bars, restaurants and clubs stayed open - and were used extensively. At Christmas time there were crowds on Mombasa's beaches. As always, the intercity buses were full - and beyond. The virus had a free run. And so there was hardly a family in which at least one person did not have "the flu."
The Kenyan government showed teeth at most on paper.
Because numerous areas of public life - including restaurants, supermarkets and local transport - should actually only be accessible to vaccinated people.
It would be one of the strictest regulations in the world.
First a court stopped the order, then the Ministry of Health enforced it anyway.
But it is not implemented.
At a busy intersection in Nairobi's city center, the matatus, the public collective taxis, honk.
You only drive off when the last seat is occupied.
Nobody here asks for a vaccination certificate.
"No, that is out of the question," says Matatu operator Viktor, while he woos passengers with a loud knock on the car roof.
“Then only the customers stay away.
We ourselves know best what is good for us. «The passengers do not want to know anything about the government's strict requirements:» I have no idea where I should get a vaccination certificate from.
I'm not being told anything, ”one passenger shouts defiantly.
And Viktor adds that Corona doesn't cause him any worries anyway.
In any case, he did not observe any severe courses in his environment.
In Kenya, Corona has lost its horror for many.
And the government has so far been reluctant to take tough action - even if nobody obeys its rules.
In any case, the compulsory vaccination was ambitious from the start.
The majority of the population would be excluded from basic services - because just 16.5 percent of the adult population are fully vaccinated.
But how is it that, despite the low vaccination rate, so few people became seriously ill?
Is Omikron actually comparatively harmless?
Could Germany just let it be swept away, as Kenya did and is still doing?
Researchers suspect that the high level of infection with the coronavirus contributed to the mild course even before Omikron. According to individual studies, up to 70 percent of people in densely populated metropolises such as Johannesburg or Nairobi were already infected with corona, which may have led to a kind of basic immunity. The population is also, on average, much younger than in Europe - and more often exposed to viruses of a similar nature.
Epidemiologists nevertheless warn against being too optimistic.
"It is completely open whether this could be the end of the pandemic now," says the head of the African Population and Health Research Center Catherine Kyobutungi.
"And it is too optimistic to trust that the next variant will be mild again and protect earlier infections against it." Her plea: keep vaccinating, vaccinating, vaccinating.
The good news in almost all African countries: there is no longer a shortage of vaccines.
So many cans are available in Kenya that anyone interested has recently been able to pick up a booster.
And this offer has been well received: on a Friday afternoon, more than a hundred people are standing in line at one of the large vaccination centers in Nairobi, including many older people who want to refresh their vaccination protection.
Stephen Muchina is here to get the second syringe.
When the government announced compulsory vaccination in November, he, like tens of thousands of other Kenyans, gave a jolt.
He has not regretted it: "I haven't had to show my vaccination certificate anywhere, but at least I'm not afraid of Omikron anymore."
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