MON, APRIL 27 2020-theG&BJournal- Health experts has warned against relaxing the lockdown in the light of calls for a slight lift of the measure put in place about one month ago to curtail the spread of the pandemic, particularly in Lagos, Ogun and the Federal Capital Territory.
The President, Muhammadu Buhari is set to address the issue tonight in a state broadcast at 8pm.
The Secretary to Government of the Federation (SGF) Boss Mustapha has repeatedly said that coronavirus is not joke, his words re-echoed frequently too by members of the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 and those words are, on a daily basis reflected on the rate of confirmed new cases and fatalities in the country.
‘’You can see the number of people dying in the north without no known causes and people pile into the cemeteries to bury them without observing social distancing. It only tells you we are in it for a long haul. It is really not a joke, says Dr S.O Ebigwei consultant and dental surgeon (MON).
‘’Let every State lock its borders so that inter-State transmission can be curtailed. Lagos is doing more testing than other States but it is not enough. There are some states in the countries that don’t have enough testing kits. So it will continue to be difficult to determine the true number of coronavirus cases in the country.’’
The health experts theG&BJournal spoke to say what the Federal Government really needs to do is to grow the capacity to get a larger number of people to be screened and tested, expand testing to every part of the country, including the remotest parts.
According to the experts, the number of new cases is not abating, the number of test conducted is not enough to determine the actual number of cases in the country, the testing process is too slow and we may probably not get out of the spikes as quickly as many government officials are projecting.
‘’You can see the pressure is building in states, and Kano is an example of the type of panic you can create when you have limited testing capacity, says Dr Ebigwei, ‘’that is why I will continue to advocate that even the States should all keep their borders closed and I expect that President Buhari will announce a country wide lockdown,’’ he said.
1273 cases of COVID-19 has so far been confirmed. The death toll at 40, is expected to continue to rise. The good news is that more patients have continued to be discharged. A total of 239 have been discharged as at April 27.
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