Latest News on Covid 19

President Muhammadu Buhari will address Nigerians by 7pm on Monday.

The Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, announced this in a statement hours before President Buhari is scheduled to address Nigerians.

“Television, radio and other electronic media outlets are enjoined to hook up to the network services of the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) and Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (FRCN) respectively for the broadcast,” he said.

The President is expected to address Nigerians on the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic as some residents in Lagos, Ogun, and the Federal Capital Territory expect to know whether the lockdown would be extended or not.

More than a million positive cases of COVID-19 have been confirmed with thousands of deaths recorded in many countries across the world.

As of April 12, the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) said a total of  323 cases have been confirmed with 10 deaths in the country

It noted that 19 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) have recorded at least one confirmed case of coronavirus while a total of 85 people have been discharged.

On March 29, President Muhammadu Buhari declared a lockdown in Lagos and Ogun States, as well as Abuja, as part of measures to curtail the spread of the disease and ease the stress of identifying contacts with confirmed cases.

In his last broadcast, President Buhari said the movement restriction would last for an initial period of 14 days effective from 11pm on March 30.

Ebrimson, who spoke on Monday during an interview on Sunrise Daily, explained, “I think we are dealing with the issue of apprehension. Earlier this month, there was a cult supremacy battle in Ifo and the police rose to the challenge and got some of them arrested.”

“Thereafter, this snowballed to Agbado, Ijoko, Ota area and we put up a team to go after the cultists and ever since then, we have been making arrests.

“People have been calling me, there is no day I don’t receive close to 100 calls. Most of these calls are false alarms. The social media is dishing out fear,” he added.

He explained that the decision was taken based on the advice of the Federal Ministry of Health and the NCDC.

The President then advised residents of the affected places to postpone travels while all businesses and offices there should be fully closed during the period of the lockdown.

Ahead of the day which the lockdown is expected to end – April 13, some residents in Lagos and Ogun State have raised alarm about unrest in their communities.

PTF Coordinator Says COVID-19 ‘Will Go Away’, Keeps Mum On Lockdown Extension

Akinola Ajibola  

Forwarded by E.E.Jerry
Updated April 13, 2020

The National Coordinator of the Presidential Task Force (PTF) on COVID-19, Dr Sani Aliyu, has urged Nigerians to continue to show understanding with the Federal Government in the period of the coronavirus pandemic.

He noted that adequate measures were already in place to curb the spread of the disease, stressing that it was only a matter of time before COVID-19 wipes out.

Dr Aliyu made the remarks while giving an update on the activities of the task force during his appearance on Channels Television’s Sunday Politics.

“It (COVID-19) will go away; it’s only a matter of time but what we don’t want is for COVID-19 to carry away a lot of our people and that wouldn’t be the right thing,” he said on the political programme.

The national coordinator added, “We will continue to push, we will continue to work, to try and keep this pandemic down but certainly, if people can observe those simple measures that we have advised, it will go a very long way towards making sure that the public remains healthy until this pandemic dies out because COVID-19 will go away.”

More than a million positive cases of COVID-19 have been confirmed with thousands of deaths recorded in many countries across the world.

In Nigeria, the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) said a total of 323 cases have been confirmed with 10 deaths as of April 12.

It added that 19 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) have recorded at least one confirmed case of coronavirus while a total of 85 people have been discharged.

As part of measures to curtail the spread of the disease and ease the stress of identifying contacts with confirmed cases, President Muhammadu Buhari declare Lagos,Abuja and Ogun lockdown. The President, in a broadcast on March 29, stated that the movement restriction which would last for an initial period of 14 days would take effect from 11pm on March 30.

Ahead of the date which the lockdown is expected to end – April 13, some residents in the affected areas have raised security concerns.

Asked whether there was any indication that President Buhari would extend the lockdown, Dr Ahmed insisted that the task force has submitted its recommendation and the decision to extend would only be taken by the President.

The national coordinator, who frowned on the action of some state governments to relax restriction protocols recently, stressed that a majority of the infections were not linked to travels abroad or linked clearly to positive cases.

He said, “In other words, community transmission, I believe, is already happening and we need to pick up those that are positive so that we can isolate them very quickly and make sure that transmission stops.

“So far, we have done well over 3,000 tests. For a population like Nigeria, that’s not really high.”

According to Dr Aliyu, one of the problems is that the government is not getting a lot of demand from certain parts of the country, especially in the North.

“We know there are challenges in terms of getting the test done. People have complained about the difficulty in accessing our telephone services and we are certainly working with NCC and others to increase the telephone channels,” he added.

God help the world.