Just hours after confirming that out of the 97 new Covid-19 cases that were recorded in Machakos County on Wednesday, 68 of them were from a single factory in Mavoko Sub-county, Machakos Governor Alfred Mutua now claims they are from a neighbouring county.

The Ministry of Health on Wednesday announced that Machakos county had recorded 97 cases, which the governor was quick to give a break down.

Dr Mutua had said that the 68 cases were detected after mass testing at the unnamed factory while 25 are from Athi River area and four cases are from patients at Machakos Level 5 hospital.

He has now backtracked, saying that the Covid-19 numbers in Machakos were lower than announced.

“It has just been clarified to me that out of the 97 positive Covid-19 numbers attributed to Machakos, 70 are from a factory in a neighboring county. Therefore, Machakos numbers are 27 (23 from Athi River & 4 from Machakos Level 5),” he said.

Dr Mutua further justified why he keeps refuting C0vid-19 numbers in his county by saying he is only being factual.

“Just setting the record straight so that history will capture the correct figures. It is called being factual. Correct figures enable us to plan and shift our resources accordingly. What you call refuting is enhancing knowledge and the educated call it data – Statistics,” he said.

Despite his claims, records at the Ministry of Health still indicate that Machakos recorded 97 positive cases on Wednesday.

As of Wednesday, the country had 11,252, cases with Nairobi reporting 248 cases, closely followed by Machakos (97), Kiambu (20), Kajiado (15) and Migori (14) while Busia had 12 new cases.