"Within a week we could have 1000 cases in the country and have to apply other restrictive measures, and following this trend in mid-April the number of infected could reach 5000 and at the end of the month 10,000. We are committed to working to manage this kind of emergency."
Speaking in this way, in the daily briefing at Harambee House in Nairobi was the Director of National Health Services of Kenya, after the intervention of his Minister, Mutahi Kagwe.
The numbers in question also refer to the measures planned in the coming days in four counties (Nairobi, Mombasa, Kilifi and Kwale) to monitor and stop the spread of the virus.
The first initiative will be to carry out sweep swabs on all people who came into contact with the first recorded cases, even if they presented as asymptomatic.
The second is to prohibit them from any kind of movement and stop the residents of Nairobi from moving outside the city circle. This is because already during the first days of growing contagion, many people, especially those left without work, fled the capital and returned to rural villages. Experts have warned that these people could unwittingly carry the disease, putting the people in their villages, especially the elderly, at risk.
"We hope that in light of recent directives on social distance, travel restrictions and mandatory quarantine, as well as other public health measures, there may be a delay in reaching the first 1,000 cases," the experts' task force wrote in a report delivered and reported by the Daily Nation newspaper. "To avoid this scenario, the team would issue new guidelines such as the immediate restriction of all travel to other counties from Kilifi, Mombasa and Kwale and the monitoring of all those who have traveled in the country in the last 21 days for screening and testing.