Head of Nigeria’s COVID-19 team, Mr. Boss Mustapha has warned that the Africa’s most populous nation might start to count dead bodies in their hundreds in the next three weeks.
This, Mustapha who doubles as Secretary to the Government of the Federation and Chairman, Presidential Task Force on Covid-19 said, is following the spread of coronavirus in the country.
Nigeria’s ThisDay newspaper, which reported this added that the country’s CDC announced it had recorded 661 new cases, raising tally to 19,808, discharges 6,718, deaths 506.
As usual, Lagos, commercial nerve centre, recorded the highest number of 230, followed by Rivers-127, Delta-83, FCT-60, Oyo-51, Edo-31, Bayelsa-27, Kaduna-25, Plateau-13, Ondo-6, Nasarawa-3, Ekiti-2, Kano-2, Borno-1.
Mustapha, who argued that the reason the numbers have continued to climb up lately was because the country has increased its testing capacity, however, noted that Nigeria was yet to even enter into the second wave of the pandemic, which according to him might be inevitable.
“The SGF, who is disturbed about the attitudes of some Nigerians to the virus despite its rate of spread, noted that by the time the death tolls start coming in, the nation might enter into a serious panic mode, because the casualties would reflect the figures and the testing rate,” ThisDay reported.
“The figures you see now are a reflection of the testing capacity of the country. We have ramped up testing. From just about two centres, we now have over 30 and so, the results are the figures you see now, the outcome of which will be an increase in the number of casualties in the next three weeks, when they’ll start manifesting.
“There’ll be pandemonium and we might get into a panic mode. Sadly, we are still in the first wave and the figures will not abate, because the attitudes of a majority of the people do not suggest that we want the figures to abate,” Mustapha explained, urging Nigerians to support the government in the fight against Covid-19 by adhering to the safety protocols.