President Uhuru Kenyatta on Thursday, April 1, responded to Kenyans who were demanding that he reopens the country following the cessation of movement issued in the counties of Nairobi, Kajiado, Machakos, Nakuru and Kiambu.
In a press briefing, Kenyatta stated that it was necessary for him to lock down due to the high Covid-19 positivity rate. He added that he could have locked down the entire country if he had gone by the strategy given to him by his advisers.
"My advisers indicated that if we are to mitigate this virus, the only thing we can do is lock down. In fact, if we had gone by their extreme, they had wanted me to lock down the whole country.
"We had to tell them that we have an economy to protect and livelihoods and that is why they picked those counties that we locked down as the most heavily infected and we went for a partial lockdown," Kenyatta stated.
Kenyatta noted that the directives would only be vacated if the Covid-19 curve flattened. The president stated that the infection rate needed to go back to below 5%.
"Fellow Kenyans, all I can say is that this disease is with us but we cannot pretend that this situation is not with us. We cannot ignore the advise that we are getting from the World Health Organisation, from CBC and our own experts," he added.
The Head of State urged Kenyans to follow guidelines issued by the Ministry of Health including washing hands, wearing of masks and practising social distance so that the infection rate can go low.
His address came just a day after a group of protestors took to the Nairobi Central Business District (CBD) to express their displeasure at the directives put in place to curb the spread of Covid-19.
Protestors including hotel and bar operators, entertainers and others lamented that they had been thrown out of jobs following the directives.
They complained that they were not only unable to pay rent but also to cater to their daily meals.
