BOSS Mustapha, Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) and Chairman of the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 (PTF) has urged Nigerians to change their attitude of scepticism and nonchalance to the virus.
Addressing journalists at the PTF COVID-19 briefing in Abuja on Thursday, Mustapha said there has been an observed drop in the number of confirmed cases and a further reduction in the number of states reporting new confirmed cases, while the rest of the world continues to declare high numbers of cases and fatalities.
Mustapha also urged Nigerians to continue to heed to COVID-19 guidelines stating that the country has had a good recovery rate.
“Although Nigeria is no longer in the top five countries by cumulative deaths in Africa, the PTF continues to urge Nigerians to change their attitude of skepticism and nonchalance to the virus,” Mustapha said.
“For the avoidance of doubts, the virus is real, ferocious, and deadly. To date, Nigeria has recorded 59,738 confirmed cases and 1,113 fatalities.
“The PTF is fully conscious, but not deceived, by the fact that our recovery rate is high and very encouraging. We still urge, however, that everyone should get tested because testing is the only way to detect, isolate, trace, and treat.”
Making reference to other countries, Mustapha said Brazil has crossed five million confirmed cases and recorded over 150,000 fatalities while other countries like France, Israel, Italy, Britain, etc., are reintroducing more restrictions and measures to curtail the spread of the pandemic in their countries
He said in order to increase testing in Nigeria, there would be a full implementation of the national testing week.
Lukman Abolade is an Investigative reporter with The ICIR. Reach out to him via [email protected], on twitter @AboladeLAA and FB @Correction94