As at today, Nigeria has tested 127,158 people of Coronavirus. 24,077 people have been confirmed as positive while 558 of them have died. The others are assumed to be either a give cases or people who have been cured.
Behind these facts however are some realities we have to face. Abujareporters brings you some of them
558 represents less than 3% of 24,077 which means that mortality rate is low. This simply means those who come out positive are generally well managed by our health institutions, hence it is easy to assume that being positive is no death sentence.
With a population of about 200million, we have only been able to test over 127,000. This is definitely a major indictment of those in charge who have decided to hoard the testing rather than allowing the involvement of private hospitals some of which have better facilities than government owned.
Third fact is that states that claimed to have no cases and have been living on lies are already being shown for what they are and the State Governors who have helped in perpetuating this, rather than encouraging those who have symptoms to come out should, in the foreseeable future face charges of crime against humanity. By claiming that their states do not have Coronavirus, they have knowingly encouraged who should have come out and be treated to die in their homes.
Fourthly, lack of in depth analysis of these figures will ultimately work against Nigeria curbing the disease as many still do not believe that Coronavirus exists. For instance, there are deaths through Coronavirus that are kept secret, blamed on other diseases. Nigeria’s inability to gather comprehensive data about its citizens may yet be one of the major challenges that those working to curb the disease will encounter.
Lagos which has been the epicenter of the disease has not been able to find a solution to its spread because of the need to balance reopening its economy and ensuring the safety of her citizens. Unless drugs that can cure Coronavirus are found fast, Lagos will continue to be an epicenter which means a major economic crisis for the nation. No economist will tell you he knows what shutting the informal sector of the economy will do to Lagos. We shall see.
Curiously, Oyo State which, though close to Lagos has been claiming immuned from the disease has now risen to the fourth in the log. Initially an organization in the state was believed to have been responsible for over 70% of the cases in the State. Maybe we need ask Makinde, what’s happening now, or are the workers still behind the surge in numbers?
The number of positive cases from Northern Nigeria for past few weeks have raised some eyebrows. At a time when over 600 people are testing positive less than 10% of these are from the North, excluding FCT. Given the State of the North, attitude to health, enlightenment, and more importantly, how Coronavirus ravaged some of the States killing hundreds, it looks a little out of place that somehow everything is quiet. Kaduna Governor, Nasir el Rufai spoke of falsification of figures by some states in order to hide what is happening. While a specialist in Kano spoke about reduction in number of tests.
Whatever it is that the North has done that has made Coronavirus disappear should.be shared with the world.
Notable and perhaps akin to this is the statistics coming from Kano. For close to a week now, Kano has recorded single digit positive cases of Coronavirus almost everyday. For those who know the attitude of the State Governor, especially the self-denials before the media blew up the unexplained deaths in the State, it is only normal that questions be asked whether Ganduje has gone back to his shutdown mode of denying Coronavirus in of the nation’s most populous states?
Or maybe there is something the state is doing which all others, especially Lagos and FCT are not that has drastically reduced the number of citizens who are positive with Coronavirus.
Finally, we are all aware of people who exhibit the symptoms associated with Coronavirus but who have refused to get tested but have taken it upon themselves to treat and cure themselves.. Perhaps if these cases are added to the NCDC figures, we may have an idea of how many have had encounters with the disease.
Until this is done, we might never really know how many have passed through Coronavirus fire.
Bamidele Akinola
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