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{
    "id": 1083949,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1083949/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 106,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. M. Kajwang’",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13162,
        "legal_name": "Moses Otieno Kajwang'",
        "slug": "moses-otieno-kajwang"
    },
    "content": "tell Kenyans the extent to which this disease is ravaging Kenyans. All of us here, be it an elected or nominated Senator is added to WhatsApp group to help with the burial preparation or hospital bills of victims of the COVID-19 pandemic. The people who are dying from the disease are the elderly. Our young people who ride boda boda think that they are immune to COVID-19 pandemic. The feeling of immunity is fueled by the fiddling of numbers by the national Government. I urge the Senate Committee on Health to pressurize the national Government to give us the right numbers for us to know the precautions to take. Secondly, is the issue of stigma. Since all of us have a relative or friend, we form part of the nuclear or extended family that have to bury persons who have succumbed to COVID-19 pandemic. When we attend many of the funerals, it is emerging in the counties in our regions such as Homa Bay, Kisumu, Migori and Siaya that people do not want to accept that COVID-19 pandemic is killing people. Something must kill a man; it could be COVID-19 pandemic, Malaria or Cancer. Where there are clear cases and an autopsy had been conducted, and someone has left us on account of COVID-19 pandemic, let us admit so. I encourage our people that there is nothing shameful about admitting that COVID-19 pandemic killed a brother or sister, father or mother. If we do not declare and attend those funerals say that the dead person was poisoned at a drinking den, or that he had Malaria, we encourage impunity. We make people start feeling that COVID-19 pandemic does not exist and that the disease is only domiciled in Nairobi yet our mortuaries are full. All the mortuaries in western Kenya are full. If you visit a popular mortuary in Homa Bay County called Kirindo Home for the Dead, there are bodies on the floor. The saddest bit is that the bodies on the floor are those of the elders, church leaders, our mothers and other people that we really respect. For the bodies of the people we respect to be found on the floor of mortuaries because of our recklessness is shameful. The only solution to the problem we face is vaccination. I am glad that recently the President realized that we have to vaccinate 26 million people. My challenge to the Committee on Health is that instead of just focusing on just counting the coins, this is the time that they need to ask what plan of action they will put in place to vaccinate 26 million people when over the last six months, they have only managed to vaccinate one million people. The COVID-19 pandemic is real and it is killing people. Let us encourage our people to comply."
}