COVID-19 outbreak, social distancing and mass testing in Kenya - Insights from a mathematical model 

Abstract As reported by the World Health Organization (WHO), the world is currently facing a devastating pandemic of a novel coronavirus ( COVID -19), which started as an outbreak of pneumonia of unknown cause in the Wuhan city of China in December 2019. Within days and weeks, the COVID -19 pandemic had spread to over 210 countries. By the end of April, COVID -19 had caused over three million confirmed cases of infections and 230,000 fatalities globally. The trend poses a huge threat to global public health. Understanding the early transmission dynamics of the infection and evaluating the effectiveness of control measures is crucial for assessing the potential for sustained transmission to occur in new areas.We employed a SEIHCRD delay differential mathematical transmission model with reported Kenyan data on cases of COVID -19 to estimate how transmission varies over time and which population to target for mass testing. The model is concise in structure, and successfully captures the course of the COVID -19 outbreak, and thus sheds light on understanding the trends of the outbreak and the vulnerable populations. The results from the model gives insights to the government on the population to target for mass testing. The government should target population in the informal settlement for mass testing. People with pre-existing medical and non-medical conditions should be identified and given special medical care. With aggressive effective mass testing and adhering to the government directives and guidelines, we can get rid of COVID -19 epidemic.