By Audrey Lotechukwu
WED, MAY 20 2020-theG&BJournal- Lagos State remains the most vulnerable state to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and continues to provide the ideal situation for the virus to thrive in the country.
There is also a real problem with the spread of the virus, now mostly community spread, despite early response processes in place to stem infiltration and infections.
Every day, since the pandemic hit the shores of the country, Lagos state, the epicentre, has consistently recorded the highest number of new infections, deaths, and on the bright side, discharged patients.
The latest figures released by the Nigerian Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), shows that the state clocked a total of 131 new cases to take its total to 2,755-nearly half the country’s total of 6, 401. It has more deaths (38) than 17 states combined-two higher than Kano. It has more patients on admission-2,152-as against 2,127 in 33 states of the federation.
The numbers paint a dire picture and reflect the difficulties ahead for the country already over stretched healthcare system. The difficulties Lagos state faces rub off on the rest of the country. It is the state with highest number of disregard to hygiene guidelines, it has more population density and more people clustering than anywhere else in the country. It is also the state most difficult to monitor compliance.
There is talk of getting the country back fully to work but the fact is that the process of managing the pandemic still has a deep seated problem. The track, trace, isolate and testing is critical in getting the state back to work. The process is still questionable.
The country’s testing capacity is already lost in argument. There is a real cost of not getting the process right and there must be a balance to get both tracking and testing right. On both issues the government have been extremely slow.
Many health experts don’t believe the country has achieved the critical mass to be able to properly access the extent of the pandemic spread in the country.
They point to the country’s limited testing capacity which is vital and they want to see more testing capacity which could reach more people at home or at work place.
The number of contact tracing staff in the country is currently vague but a significant number is required for the country and its huge population, at least 30,000 nationwide according to theG&BJournal sources, besides those deployed by various state governments- volunteers and marginally paid staff as well. The process of tracing must also be deployed in stages to effectively capture those with the virus.
The most pressing concern is how to ensure that healthcare facilities in the country will continue to be places where patients can at anytime be admitted rather than incubators of the disease.
This concern stems from the decreasing number of bed spaces which is pushing back the capability of states still expecting large cases of infection.
The Federal Government will need to make a choice of testing and focusing on the healthcare facilities and chasing the infection hot spots-the motor parks and market places, as well as enforcing even more strictly, the hygiene guidelines.
The government also has to a make a choice of tougher measures over the regular appeals to be able to reel in the spread of the disease nationwide. It may include increasing the role of security agencies around the country-some form of draconian measures to stop people from spreading the disease further to others.
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