Number of new confirmed COVID-19 cases has been low . The Presidential Task Force while briefing Buhari explained why this has been so.
NAIJA NEWS NG reports that the Boss Mustapha led COVID-19 task force met with the president on August 5th to submit its interim report on the progress of tackling the pandemic in Nigeria . The task force explained that the reason the number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 reduced in recent time was due to the reduced testing because of the Sallah holiday .
You would recall that the one week extended current phase two eased lockdown due to COVID-19 will elapse today, Monday 6 August. Read Boss Mustapha’s words below :
”If you noticed, as we celebrated those discharges, there has also been a decrease in the testing. 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.
Another reason is that everybody is still in Sallah mood, even the essential workers. Remember when I talked of fatigue, this is part of it. 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 sub nationals 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 are encouraging the state governments to go into the local communities to ensure that they search for those infected with this virus, test them, if they are positive, isolate them and provide care for them.”
Mustapha while briefing newsmen after the meeting, also disclosed that new directives will be released on Thursday, August 6
As for the content of the report, it will be premature for me to talk about it because we submitted a report, we have submitted recommendations and so we have to leave for Mr President to take a decision. By the time I receive his approvals, non-approvals on the recommendations we have made, we will be able to speak to the Nigerian people tomorrow (Thursday).”
