The National Coordinator of the Presidential Task Force (PTF), Dr Sani Aliyu, said 44 persons died of the disease in Lagos and Abuja within December 2020 alone.
He said seven died from the disease in the two locations earlier in November.
Aliyu said, “As we know, different parts of the world are now witnessing a surge in Covid cases and the PTF will like to reiterate the importance of continuous adherence to non-pharmaceutical interventions. There is no doubt that here in Nigeria, we are experiencing our own second wave, which is now sweeping across the country.
“For those of you following our numbers, the number of new cases per week has tripled. We were running around 2,000 cases per week; we now exceed 6,000 cases a week. Three weeks ago, if we took 100 samples, we got four positives; we are now getting 16 positives.
“In November, in Lagos, five persons died of Covid; in December, 26 died of Covid. In Abuja, in November, two persons died of Covid; in December, 18 died of Covid. And these are all preventable deaths from a disease that we know we can protect ourselves from.
“So, there is no doubt (that) we are in a great danger, hence the reason why we have continued to talk about these non-pharmaceutical interventions. We know that vaccines are available but these vaccines are not here yet with us. Even if you have a vaccine today, based on the vaccines that we currently have, it will take at least a month to get a good immune response because you will need a second dose. So, why not use the vaccine that we have already here, which are the non-pharmaceutical interventions?”
The PTF coordinator also announced that the Federal Government had pencilled down 20,000 defaulters and had resolved to, every week, sanction 100 international travellers who failed to take required tests after their arrival in the country.
Aliyu said, “On the 100 passengers that we have restricted their passports, we are very grateful to the CG (of) Immigration. Just to clear the air, we have worked with the Nigerian Immigration Service every step of the way over the last few weeks.
“I’m sure that most of you will be aware that in September when the new travel protocols came out, we made it very clear that ‘if you do not comply with the protocols, there will be repercussions, and these repercussions were stated very clearly, that your travel documents will be restricted and you will not be able to travel out of the country for six months.’
“Three months, we have been monitoring this. We had over 160,000 passengers in the last three months; less than half bothered to pay for the test. Of those that paid for the test, more than a third did not even bother to go for the test on Day 7 (after arrival). And we are not interested in the money because the government is not involved in testing within the private sector. What we are interested in is to make sure that you do not bring in Covid into our country. We are interested in making sure that when you come in, you self-isolate for seven days and we know your status at Day 7 when you exit.
“We have appealed, we have cajoled, we have urged travellers to do the right thing but it was very obvious that things would not change unless we apply the penalty, which was why we applied the penalty. We have already published the list of 100 passport numbers of people that are restricted from travelling for the next six months.
“We have over 20,000 passport numbers of those that have not complied with our protocols. We will continue to publish 100 fresh lists every week and monitor the compliance until such a time that we note a significant improvement in compliance. If the compliance improves, in the next one to two weeks, we will not continue. It not in our best interest to penalise people but if we have to, for the sake of public health, we will.”
Aliyu urged Nigerians to continue to obey the safety protocols. He also said the PTF is urging the state governments to set up task forces empowered to enforce the protocols.
The PTF coordinator also noted that testing remained critical in the response to the pandemic, recalling that 37,000 samples were tested nationwide last week, with Abuja having over 9,000; and Lagos, over 7,000; while three states tested only six, 11 and 26 samples, respectively.
