Last week was the worst since the outbreak of the COVID-19 disease in Nigeria, the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) said on Tuesday.
Director-General of the NCDC, Dr Chikwe Iheakwazu, who spoke during the press briefing of the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 in Abuja, said Nigeria’s health system is struggling to cope with the daily increase in the number of coronavirus infections.
The NCDC boss warned that Nigeria will record more cases in January as, according to him, Nigerians have been disregarding health protocols.
Ihekweazu said, “We just faced the worst week since we started responding to this outbreak. We had more cases in Nigeria last week than in any other previous week since the beginning of the outbreak.”
He added that “pictures and videos from across the country paint a very disheartening situation because it appears that our messages, our appeals to Nigerians over the last few months have not been heeded and we have gone ahead with business as usual”.
“Events centres are full, social activities are full and so it is no surprises that cases are rising.
“January will be a tough month, no doubt about it. So, we have to brace ourselves for the consequences of the activities that we have decided to carry out in December,” Ihekweazu added.
Also speaking at the press briefing, Chairman of the PTF, Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Boss Mustapha, expressed disappointment that despite the resources made available to the states, they have not been conducting enough tests for COVID-19.
The SGF threatened that with effect from January 1, 2021, the passports of the first 100 passengers that failed to take their day seven post-arrival PCR test would be published in the national dailies.
Also, as a deterrence, their passports would be suspended till June 2021.
Mustapha added that the Federal Government had worked out additional quarantine protocols to be observed by travellers from the UK and South Africa.
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