Nakuru Governor, Lee Kinyanjui has asked the government to impose a total lockdown to avoid further spread of the coronavirus.
The governor observed that the disease was spreading faster because of major lapses in enforcing precautionary measures and the general attitude of Kenyans.
He petitioned President Uhuru Kenyatta and Health CS Mutahi Kagwe to lockdown and save the country from major economic and health repercussions.
"The infections were at the community level and the numbers might spike to unmanageable levels yet we are not well equipped to handle them," he said.
The county boss said Nakuru had seven Intensive Care Unit beds and 19 ventilators and would, therefore, be overstretched in case of increased cases.
He said the government had opted to take half measures where the public was interacting during the day without complying with the set precautionary measures.
Addressing the media at the County Headquarters on Friday, Kinyanjui said a lockdown was inevitable and there was no need of waiting for the cases to spike to make the move.
"We have seen countries that initially took half measures and the kind of statistics they are dealing with yet they eventually resulted to a lockdown," he said.
Kinyanjui said one of the positive cases in Nakuru was a 28-year-old lady who had travelled from Mombasa.
"Had a lockdown been imposed, the lady would not have carried the virus to Nakuru," he said.
The governor said it was unfortunate that the lady might have spread the virus to many people considering that she travelled on a bus.
He said the company was profiling contacts of the two people who tested Covid-19 positive in the county.
Kinyanjui said the country would rather deal with hunger effects due to the lockdown than handling 10,000 or 20,000 Covid-19 cases.
Governor Kinyanjui said the magic of fighting the pandemic was in the prevention since no country in the world was prepared for it.
