The Rainbow
Nigeria on Monday confirmed 290 fresh cases of COVID-19, which maintains a decelerating trend picked up last week.
The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, who announced the latest infection numbers on Monday in a tweet on its handle, also disclosed 33,346 persons have recovered from the virus infection in Nigeria since late February when the first index case was reported in the country.
The agency confirmed new cases in 15 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), taking the number of infected people in the nation to 46,867.
On the whole, 950 persons have died in the country from the virus.
The NCDC latest data indicate that Lagos and the FCT reported the highest cases for the day – 82 each.
Other states with fresh cases are Oyo – 19, FCT – 18; Edo – 16; Kaduna – 15; Enugu -9; Ogun – 9; Kano -8; Kwara – 8; Cross River -5; Ondo – 5; Rivers -5; Ekiti -4; Imo – 3 and Borno – 2.
Worried by the number of fatalities from COVID-19 in the country, Minister of Health, Dr Osagie Ehanire, is however warning that Nigerians should not relapse in the adherence to safe distancing and other protocols which the government put in place.
Ehanire at a briefing of the Presidential Task Force (PTF) on COVID-19 in Abuja on Monday said that until a vaccine is found for the virus, adherence to the guidelines is the surest way to stay safe.
“Until there is a vaccine, the only options we have to protect ourselves, are still the non-pharmaceutical measures that are proven to be cheap and effective, such as the appropriate use of face masks, physical distancing, and avoiding crowds. If we do not adhere, there could be regrets,” he warned.
Incidentally, many Nigerians have since returned to their normal ways of lives, believing that the pandemic is over.
Many argue that the number of deaths arising from the virus are not up to the number of persons that die from malaria in the country.
