By Audrey Lotechukwu
FRI, MAY 01 2020-theG&BJournal- Dr Sylvan Ebigwei, consultant and Dental Surgeon describes this phase as the ‘’nursery stage’’ of the outbreak in the country. He says Nigeria will go the full cycle-from nursery to primary to secondary and then tertiary stages.
‘’When we are done going through these stages, over 1 million Nigerians would have been infected by the coronavirus (COVID-19), the morgues will run out of space and deaths will be in hundreds of thousands. That is the gravity of the price the populace will pay for not taking the lockdown seriously,’’ he said.
The country has recorded just 58 deaths as at Thursday April 30 2020. Total confirmed new cases jumped 204 to 1932. 319 patients have also been discharged after recovering. According to the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), 71% of all cases are from three States. 34 States and the FCT have recorded at least a confirmed case. The NCDC activated the 18th laboratory Thursday at the Bayero University Kano, the second laboratory to be inaugurated in the state.
‘’Only 18 laboratories for a country of 200 million people? That shows how grossly unprepared we are for this pandemic, and as you can see pressure is beginning to build among the country’s health officials, and the blame game has gone public’’ says a health expert close to theG&BJournal.
Thursday the Director General of the NCDC Chikwe Ihekweazu admitted during the Presidential Task Force Briefing that they are beginning to run out of bed space and that the pressure is beginning to mount uncontrollably. On the same day Lagos State Governor Babajide Sanwo Olu pointed his finger towards the Federal Government for not locking down the country’s airports early.
Our sources say the blame will escalate and because of the quick relaxation of the lockdown, it could turn into outright verbal fight.
President Muhammadu Buhari bowed to pressure, our sources say, to ease the lockdown when the country has not even evaluated the gains from the partial lockdown imposed just over a month ago.
Reports show that countries that ease their lockdowns are those that have reached their peak, evaluated the curve to see if it is flattening and those that have the capacity to contain a second wave of attack. We haven’t achieved any of these before the easing began.
‘’That is a terrifying illustration of ignorance,’’ our source said.
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