The ramping up of testing for COVID-19 is raking up an alarming figure of people returning positive for the virus and projecting into the future, analysts are asking the federal government to prepare for another lockdown to avert disaster.
Yesterday, the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) reported 195 new cases, up from the 64 of the previous day, bringing the tally to 1,532 with 255 persons discharged and 44 dead across 33 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). So far, only three states have been spared by the deadly virus.
According to NCDC, 10,918 persons have been tested, meaning roughly 14 per cent of those were positive. Yet it has announced that it intends to ramp up its testing to two million in three months. This is where the analysts are concerned, wondering if the infected are this high during the lockdown, what would happen when the restriction is eased.
Yielding to public pressure, President Muhammadu Buhari had on Monday night signed a proclamation easing the lockdown he had imposed on the FCT, Lagos, and Ogun states on March 30 through the COVID-19 Regulations 1, which he renewed with the second regulation on April 14.
The president had, in a nationwide broadcast, eased the restriction replacing it with a country-wide curfew from 8pm to 6am effective from Monday, May 4. He banned inter-state travels as well as social and religious gathering and compelled the use of face mask in public places.
He, however, locked down Kano State, which had become the new epicentre of the rampaging virus.
Although he noted the rising cases of the pandemic despite the four-week lockdown, the president appeared helpless in the face of restiveness of the citizens who were complaining of hunger due to lack of livelihood. The business owners were also complaining and warning of the potential danger to the fragile economy if the lockdown persisted.
But extrapolating from the figures turned in yesterday, analysts foresee disaster ahead. NCDC in its update said the pandemic had soared by 195 from 15 states, including Lagos 80, Kano 38, Bauchi 15, Ogun 15, Borno 11, Gombe 10, Sokoto nine, Jigawa five, Edo five, Zamfara two, FCT one, Enugu one, Rivers one, Delta one, and Nasarawa one.
According to analysts, who spoke to THISDAY, with an infection rate of 14 per cent and a death rate of three per cent, the figure could become huge when testing is ramped up to two million as projected by NCDC.
“What this means is that at the present rate of 14 per cent, we would be looking at about 280,000 infected persons and 8,400 deaths when the testing increases to two million in three months,” said one of the analysts.
Saying this is a disaster waiting to happen, he advised the federal government to prepare for another lockdown to avert the impending public health crisis.
The analysts, however, recognised that the president had eased the lockdown in the first instance because the government had failed to properly channel its palliatives to the poorest of the poor, whose then became very restive.
Going forward, they advised the federal government to use the period of the easement to do a restructure its palliative distribution strategy, saying it had to take into cognizance that it could not fund it alone.
“Government must realise that it could not foot the palliatives alone, therefore it must mobilise both the private sector and encourage communities to be their brothers’ keeper,” an analyst said, pointing to the example of Lekki Food Bank in Lagos State.
“Every community must be encouraged to set up its food bank and distribute to the needy,” he said, explaining that except the poor and the workers are food-secure no lockdown would work. (Thisday)
