By Moses Adeniyi
Lagos State Governor, Mr. Babajide Sanwo-Olu, has said the Government is being careful to issue new stringent directives to enforce safety protocols in curtailing the spread of the third wave of the COVID-19 virus in the State.
This, he said, is important to take in view sensitivity to prevailing socio-economic realities in the State.
“It’s been a lot of challenge for us managing this virus. Managing a pandemic of this nature and scale is not and will never be an easy endeavor.
“It is costly and requires hard work and commitment from a wide range of stakeholders and partners, sacrificing their time and energy and resources on multiple fronts to slow down the virus, and eventually to tame it.
“It also involves efforts in the direction of maintaining livelihoods and ensuring that the disruption to socio-economic activities is minimised. So we will be very careful not to be draconian in pronouncements.”
According to him, against such pronouncement, the State Government will strengthen enlightenment to intimate citizens on the need to reason with the Government.
The Governor who made the position known at the State House, Ikeja, on Monday while reeling out briefings to update on the management of the virus in the State, said vaccination is central to mitigating the third wave of the virus which has been worsened by the high transmissible character of the Delta variant.
Governor Sanwo-Olu who mentioned that statistics have shown that larger percentage of those testing positive to the virus in the third wave are unvaccinated patients, affirmed that statistics show globally that lowered positivity and fatality rate have been recorded in Countries where larger percentage of their citizens have been vaccinated.
“One of the major pillars of our mitigation strategy for the third wave is vaccination. We are seeing that countries that have vaccinated a large percentage of their population are recording drastic reductions, in the numbers of COVID-19 related deaths.
“This is one of the reasons why we have not spared any cost to ensure that the vaccines that have been provided by the Federal Government are made available to every resident that meets the requirements for the vaccination program,” he said.
According to Governor Sanwo-Olu, Lagos State has received its allocation of 299,992 doses of the Moderna vaccine on the 18th of August 2021.
This allocation according to him, is for the second phase of the national vaccination campaign, which will commence across 150 centres in the State on Wednesday, August 25, 2021, (tomorrow), based on registration through the online portal of the Federal Government’s vaccination portal (nphcda.vaccination.gov.ng).
“Our ultimate goal in Lagos State is to vaccinate 60% of our residents in good time. Let me remind all Lagosians that Covid-19 vaccination in Nigeria is free of charge,” he said
He however warned that the Moderna vaccine that will be administered should not be mixed with the AstraZeneca vaccine, which translates that all who have taken the first dose of the later should refrain from taking the former.
The Moderna vaccine is a two-dose vaccine, like the Astra Zeneca vaccine that was deployed during the first phase of vaccination.
Management Statistics
In his update, the Governor who is the Incident Commander on COVID-19 management in the State, said the third wave have continued to assume a disturbing toll due to non adherence of residents to safety protocols to mitigate the spread of the virus.
He disclosed that as at the 21st of August 2021, the State had recorded a total of 70,563 confirmed cases of COVID-19, of which 60,716 have recovered in-community, and 4,387 are currently being managed actively in-community.
According to him, the test positivity rate, which measures how many tests are returning positive, out of every 100 tests conducted, currently stands at 12.1 per cent; compared to 1.1% at the end of June 2021, and 7% at end of July 2021.
“We have identified that the third wave emerged on account of non-adherence to the laid-down health protocols designed to mitigate this pandemic. For this reason, it is essential for me to, once again, remind all of us of the huge responsibility we have to contribute to fighting and defeating this virus.
“As a State Government, we have taken substantial steps to arrest this third wave in its tracks, most notable of them is the increased monitoring and enforcement embarked upon by members of the Incident Command structure.
“Unfortunately, we have recorded severe recalcitrance on the part of the public, which has led to the higher infection rates that we are now recording.
“The health and travel protocols and guidelines issued by the Federal and State Governments exist to protect and safeguard us all and the inconveniences that might come with them are only a small price to pay, to avert far more serious consequences,” he said.
He mentioned that over 5,551 patients have so far been admitted into the State’s isolation centres, with over 506 fatalities.
“Over the course of managing the COVID-19 pandemic, about 5,551 patients have been admitted into our various COVID-19 care centres in Lagos, with 506 registered fatalities,” he said.
Of the 506 fatalities recorded so far, 135 were recorded in the third wave alone.
Home-based care
On the State’s home-based care programme, powered by the EKOTELEMED, he disclosed that the call center, has so far catered to 5,074 COVID-19 positive persons, out of a total of 20,716 positive persons who have been offered the programme.
This translates to the fact that three of every four Covid-positive persons offered the free Lagos State telemedicine programme have opted not to use it.
It was gathered however that 94 per cent of all the persons who have opted into the home care programme,translating to 4,787 persons, have been discharged, and no deaths have been recorded since it was launched in 2020.
Under the programme, all persons who opt to use the programme receive a home care pack, in addition to the telemedicine access.
Governor Sanwo-Olu in his briefing called on residents of the State to take advantage of the programme upon sensing feelings of the symptoms of the virus.
Travel protocols
On travel protocols for in-bound passengers, Governor Sanwo-Olu disclosed that between the 8th of May, 2021 and the 21st of August, 2021, a total of 88,847 Persons of Interest (POIs) have arrived in Lagos via the Murtala Mohammed International Airport. Of the 88,847 POIs, 1,073 have tested positive upon arrival.
As dictated by the Presidential Steering Committee on COVID-19 (PSC), passengers from red-listed countries – India, South Africa, Brazil and Turkey – are required to observe mandatory isolation.
According to the Governor, as at 21st of August 2021, Lagos State has identified 5,998 of these persons and successfully isolated 4,500 of them arriving from the red-listed countries, while 1,094 have absconded.
According to Governor Sanwo-Olu, Nigerians who disregard the protocols and abscond from isolation are directly putting the rest of the country at risk of unending waves of the pandemic.
Severe cases
On the treatment of ‘very severe cases’, Governor Sanwo-Olu disclosed that the State have had a gradual increase in the uptake of oxygen from the utilisation of 75 cylinders per day at the beginning of the third wave, to over 400 cylinders per day, currently.
Mentioning that more may be needed over the next few weeks, he said: “We are exploring several ways of increasing our oxygen capacity, including partnering with the private sector.”
Stating that the State’s target is an oxygen supply capacity of 1,000 cylinders per day, he reiterated that oxygen supply is free at all public facilities designated for the treatment of COVID-19 in the State, calling on members of the public to report any case of a staff soliciting fees for the provision of oxygen to the Office of the State’s Commissioner for Health, following which disciplinary actions will be taken.
The Governor who called for residents’ cooperation with the Government to stem the claws of the virus which has dealt huge blow on the socioeconomic realities in the State, said: “I appeal for your cooperation. The threat of the Coronavirus is not theoretical, it is very real. We have been on the journey now for about 18 months, and we are all witnesses to the immense disruptions we have seen on every front, not to talk of the many lives that have been lost.
“We are all united in our desire to put this virus and the pandemic behind us as quickly as we can, but this will not happen, if we continue to disregard health protocols.”
On the impacts of the strike of doctors under the aegis of the Nigerian Association of Resident Doctors (NARD), he intimated that only resident doctors domiciled in the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH) were involved in the industrial action, mentioning that there were enough of other doctors to cater for health provisions in the State.
Lagos State has remained the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic in Nigeria since its incursion into the Country in February 2020. Statistics of the third wave have shown the State maintaining the status. Observers have linked the profile to the population and commercial density of the State.