Pascal Arogorn Ibe
The Presidential Taskforce on COVID-19 has identified states where a second lockdown could happen given the increase in the number of infections across the country.
PTF National Incident Manager, Mukhtar Muhammed, disclosed this on Friday when he appeared as a guest on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily.
Describing the rising cases of Covid infections recorded in three urban areas as alarming, Muhammed identified the states as Federal Capital Territory, Abuja; Lagos and Plateau States.
He said according to available data, urban local governments in the affected places recorded the highest cases of the virus during the second wave in the country.
Asked if only those hotspot areas will be targeted for lockdown, he said: “That is exactly what we did, we have been analysing the data and we have been looking at the geographical areas that have been most affected and the different age groups.”
“Certainly, even if we are going to have a lockdown, it is not going to be a total lockdown. A couple of weeks back, we analysed the data and we identified the hotspot local government areas.
“Mostly, the areas affected are the urban local governments in Lagos, Abuja, Kaduna, Plateau. Even in most other states, it is the urban areas that are involved. So, if we are going to have any restriction, it will be in these areas.
“The urban areas are the most affected and that is why we have these superspreaders and that is where we are going to target. We have analysed that and we are advising the states based on the data that these are the focused areas where these transmissions are more than the others.”
Data obtained from Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, NCDC. reveals that Lagos, Abuja and Plateau have recorded 46,935, 16,470 and 7,801 cases respectively in the last eleven months.
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