Federal Government on Thursday urged Nigerians to prepare for difficult days ahead as cases of corona virus infections continue to rise. It also raised the alarm that 80 percent of infected persons were not in isolation centres.
The government warned that the effect of increased transmission of the dreaded disease would seen in three weeks through increased death figures as a result of the pandemic, adding that the risk of infection is now higher.
Nigeria has recorded 17, 735 and 469 people have died of the highly virus.
The Chairman of the Presidential Task Force on Covid-19 and Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Boss Mustapha, told reporters in Abuja that Nigeria is not out of the woods yet.
Mustapha said that Nigerians must cooperate with government to tackle the challenge of resistance to change.
He said: “When we started it was one (case) on the 27 of February. Today, we have a record number of over 17, 000 and it is still counting and the truth of this matter is that the adverse effects of these numbers will not be seen now until three weeks ahead.
That is when you will begin to see the projections of the mortality “Because it takes that length of time to go through the processes of incubation and the adverse effect of it. We have got hard days ahead. We have got tough days ahead. We need everybody to understand that we are not out of the woods yet.
“Sometimes, when I am coming to the office in the morning I see people casually put their masks under their chin, that’s when they care to carry it and people go about their businesses as if there is nothing to dread.
“There are more difficult days ahead, there are harder times ahead as our figures begin to rise. “We have not finished with the first wave.
We have not even peaked. So don’t talk about the second wave. Let us deal with the first wave because there is so much work to do.” The SGF noted that 80 per cent of infected persons are not in isolation centres because of fear of stigmatisation.
He said the government is taking care of only 20 per cent of patient who show up at isolation centres.
