The Presidential Task Force (PTF) on COVID-19 has warned against travelling to Kogi after classifying the state as ‘high-risk.’
The PTF hinged its decision on the state government’s repeated denial of the existence of the deadly disease and its poor attitude towards report tests and isolation centres.
According to The Cable, Mukhtar Muhammad, national incident manager of the PTF, made the announcement during a media briefing on Monday, stating that Kogi was not testing at all.
He said, “We have states where data is not coming forth. If we don’t test, your data will not be analysed, and if your data is not analysed, we won’t know the level of the pandemic in your state,” he said.
“Notable among the states that have not been reporting adequately are Yobe, Jigawa, Zamfara and Kebbi and, of course, Kogi that has not been reporting at all.”
“States that are not testing are probably at much higher risk than the states that are currently known as high burdened states.”
“A state that is not testing at all is an absolute high-risk for Nigerians to go there because there is no testing facility and even if you fall sick, there is no isolation centre and they don’t even acknowledge that the disease exists. So for that reason, we put that state at the top of the high-risk state,” he said.
While some states across the country have seen an increase in cases in the second wave, Kogi, as of the time of filing this report, had only reported five of the novel coronavirus.
Lagos State has recorded 49,274 cases; FCT, 16,863; Plateau state, 7,894; while Kaduna State has recorded 7,661 cases.
Nigeria has recorded 131,242 positive cases out of 1,302, 410 tested samples, with 1,586 deaths related to COVID-19.
Out of the total 131,242 positive cases, 104, 989 have recovered, and only 24,667 are active cases.
Yahaya Bello, Kogi State governor, has, on numerous occasions, rejected the existence of the virus and was seen lately discouraging a crowd of supporters from taking COVID-19 vaccines.
He had told the cheering crowd, without evidence, that vaccines introduced to combat the virus was intended to kill people.
“…They want to use the (COVID-19) vaccines to introduce the disease that will kill you and us. God forbid!” he said.
“These vaccines are being produced in less than one year of COVID-19. There is no vaccine yet for HIV, malaria, cancer and for several diseases that are killing us… We should draw our minds back to what happened in Kano during the polio vaccines that crippled and killed our children. We have learned our lessons.
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“If they say they are taking the vaccines in the public, allow them take their vaccines. Don’t say I said you should not take it, but if you want to take it, open your eyes before you take the vaccines.”
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He had also, in his new year broadcast, said his administration would not respond to the second wave of COVID-19 with ‘mass hysteria.’
Olayinka works with The ICIR as the Social Media Manager, Reporter and Fact-checker. You can shoot him an email via shehuolayinka@gmail.com. You can as well follow him on Twitter via @BelloYinka72