With over 10,000 recoveries
confirmed in less than one week, the presidential task force (PTF) on COVID-19
says it is too early to celebrate because there has been reduced testing as a
result of the Sallah break.
Boss Mustapha, chairman of the
PTF and secretary to the government of the federation, disclosed the reason for
the plummet in the figure of new COVID-19 cases while speaking with journalists
on Wednesday.
On August 4, the Nigeria Centre
for Disease Control (NCDC) confirmed more than 10,000 new recoveries,
increasing the tally to over 30,000 patients discharged.
However, while responding to a
question on if the recent significant increase in recoveries was a sign of the
curve flattening, Mustapha said it is too early to tell, and as soon as activities
pick up fully, testing will increase.
“If you noticed, as we celebrated
those discharges, there’s also been a decrease in the testings. In the last
couple of days we tested just barely 2,000 across the nation, but we have a
testing capacity of much more thousands than 2,000,” he said.
“Another reason; everybody is
still in the Sallah mood, even the essential workers. Remember when I talked of
fatigue? This is part of it. We’ve been doing this thing for the last three to
four months. It gets to a point when you want to lay back and say we are
already overcoming this, but I know that in the next couple of days, the
testing will be rampant because people would have come out of the Sallah
celebrations and come back to work.
“The subnationals and local governments
will begin to go into the communities to search, because this is the point at
which you have to go into the local communities and begin to search. If you
don’t do that, so much is happening as a result of the community transmission
that has been cascaded into the local communities, that if you wait for it to
present itself, it will present itself in a very explosive manner and we can
get into a panic mode.
“We don’t want to have that. That
is why we are encouraging the state governments to go into the local
communities to ensure that they search for those infected with this virus, test
them, and if they are positive, isolate them and provide care for them.”
The number of new cases has
decreased steadily in the past few days, dropping to as low as 288 new
infections on August 3, 2020 — the lowest figure in two months.
However, by August 5, the cases
appeared to be on the rise again, increasing to 457 new infections.
The PTF is expected to announce
new COVID-19 protocol approved by the president at the media briefing on
Thursday.
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