COVID-19 Response in Kenya, March 2020 to March 2021: A Comparative Analysis from a Historical Perspective

Abstract This study explored Kenya’s response to coronavirus disease 2019 (hereafter COVID-19) between 13 March 2020, when the first confirmed case was publicly announced, and 8 March 2021, when the country’s vaccination campaigns against the scourge began. The vaccination campaigns began after the country received some doses through the COVID-19 Vaccine Global Access Facility (COVAX). Although African indigenous medicines were critical in arresting the rapid spread of the pandemic, the article argues that the vaccine doses strengthened this global menace in the Kenyan context, but did not stop the local indigenous initiatives. In view of this, the article compares the COVID-19 pandemic with the influenza epidemic which affected Kenya in 1918 and 1919. Did history repeat itself in the pandemic that confronted Kenya in 2020–2022? Did COVID-19 find a well-prepared society that had learnt from history? The article begins by attempting to understand the nature of pandemics right from the Athenian plague of 430 BCE, which occurred during the Peloponnesian War (432–405 BCE), and conceptualises the subject by drawing from the history of global pandemics. It then compares the COVID-19 pandemic with the 1918–19 influenza pandemic and ends with an informed conclusion that is useful for future reactions towards pandemics.