For the last few weeks, there has been constant communication from the Ministry of Health. Updates have covered the number of cases and guidelines on public life and public transport. Public transport in Kenya generally consists of privately owned and managed vehicles. These mostly use 14, 23 and 33-seater vehicles. Ministerial directives indicate that 14-seater public vehicles should carry a maximum of eight passengers, 25-seaters are to carry no more than 15 passengers while 30-seater buses and above should maintain a 60 percent maximum capacity. People are discouraged from sitting next to each other and the transport companies are to provide hand sanitizers. The vehicles have continued to operate but with increased fares, thus pushing the burden to the passengers. At points of departure, some public transport vehicles were asking clients to wash their hands before boarding but for most of those who board along the route, there is little or no effort made to maintain the expected sanitation standards. A leading media group used online crowdsourcing to assess the situation in public transport and the revelations were not too surprising for many – not much effort was expended on the new hygiene rules. Scenes of overloading, non- compliance with hygienic standards and dirty vehicles could be observed in many places. Inter-city and inter-county travel continued. By contrast, in Shenzhen, China, inter-city travel was one of the first things that the local bus company stopped as it foresaw this to be an easy way to spread the virus. On Monday, 6th of April, the Head of State announced that there would be immediate cessation of movement in and out of the Nairobi Metropolitan Area. The same restrictions were applied to Mombasa and Kilifi counties, which lie along the Kenyan Coast.

In the majority of in urban areas, public life has generally come to a halt. The constant traffic congestion the city of Nairobi is known for has all but disappeared. The streets in the central business district no longer have their usual foot traffic and many shops have very little or no footfall. Public spaces like parks and urban forests have hardly had any visitors. Since bars and night clubs initially continued to attract patrons, the government ordered their immediate closure on the 22nd of March.

There have been several calls for a countrywide lockdown as is happening in many parts of the world. Unfortunately, the socio-economic characteristics of African cities pose difficult challenges to the implementation of such a drastic measure. The majority of residents live in unplanned and poorly serviced informal areas. A large percentage earn their daily living through running small-scale and informal businesses, living off daily earnings or wages. The lack of basic services within the poorer neighbourhoods is likely to lead to a rapid and largely unhindered spread of the virus. At the same time, for those who work in the informal sector of the economy, being out of or away from work for a single day may mean sleeping hungry alongside several of their dependants. If large parts of the population find themselves thrown into both a health crisis and unemployment, this could easily lead to major riots, even social anarchy. Public authorities are therefore faced with a difficult position. The country does not have a social security system in place to support the poorer urban communities. Street vendors, informal markets, small-scale artisans have no choice but to continue with their daily routines. In response, the city authorities have attempted to fumigate all major markets knowing that most of them will not disrupt their operation. There is, however, fear that if this segment of the society gets struck by the virus, the escalation levels could be worse experiences than other parts of the world.