Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, has said that curfew may be imposed in the state with the increasing cases of coronavirus.
He said this during a live broadcast at the State House, Marina, on Friday evening.
He said, “We are moving to the direction of curfew, but there are indices and numbers we need to see, we haven’t seen that number yet to warrant a curfew.
“The disease is not a respecter of anybody. It doesn’t look at class, gender or race, everybody is at risk, that is why we need to obey the rules and regulations set for ourselves.”
The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control on Friday said the cases of the coronavirus in the country had increased to 70 – three have been discharged and one dead.
Also speaking on Friday, Lagos State Commissioner for Health, Prof. Akin Abayomi, said the state may witness up to 39,000 cases of coronavirus.
Abayomi urged people to adhere to the social distancing advice of the state government to check the spread of the disease.
He said, “Our mathematical modeling shows that the worst-case scenario is that we may see up to 39,000 cases in Lagos, but if everyone practises good social distancing, the figure will be limited to 13,000.
“If we add social distancing to active contact tracing, then we will be able to bend the curve further. The figures may seem alarming at this point, but this is just to emphasise to the Lagos community to follow instructions of the incident commander to make sure that we practice social distancing.
“Looking at the same timeframe from the introduction of the index case, you can see that Lagos State is not seen anywhere near what Spain, Italy, and Iran are showing. So, at weeks two and three of our index case, we are flat; and at week four, we have 37 cases; while at the same fourth week, Italy, Iran, and Spain had more than 20,000 cases.”
Number of cases hit 70
Nigeria has now recorded 70 confirmed cases of coronavirus, as five new cases were recorded on Friday.
According to the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), the five new cases were recorded in Abuja and Oyo State.
The NCDC said three of the new cases were recorded at the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja while the other two cases were recorded in Oyo State.
“Five new cases of #COVID19 have been reported in Nigeria: 3 in FCT & 2 in Oyo State. As at 08:00 pm 27th March there are 70 cases of confirmed #COVID19 reported in Nigeria. 3 have been discharged with 1 death,” it said on its twitter handle.
At present, Lagos has 44 cases; FCT 14; Ogun 3; Ekiti 1 and Oyo 3. Edo, Osun and Rivers have one case each while Bauchi State has two.