The Federal Government has said the recent decline in the number of daily coronavirus infections was due to the Sallah break as well as fatigue of health workers.
Boss Mustapha, Chairman of the Presidential Task Force (PTF) on COVID-19, stated this in an interview with State House correspondents after he led members of the task force to present its interim report to the President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
The number of daily COVID-19 cases confirmed recently in the country have fallen below the 500 mark.
Mustapha, explaining reasons for the decline, said, “If you noticed, as we celebrated those discharges, there has also been a decrease in the testing.
“In the last couple of days, we tested just barely 2,000 across the nation, but we have a testing capacity of much more thousands than 2,000.
“Another reason is that everybody is still in Sallah mood, even the essential workers. Remember when I talked of fatigue, this is part of it.
“But I know that in the next couple of days, the testing will be rampant because people would have come out of the Sallah celebrations and come back to work.
“The sub nationals and local governments will begin to go into the communities to search because this is the point at which you have to go into the local communities and begin to search.
“If you don’t do that, so much is happening as a result of the community transmission that has been cascaded into the local communities that if you wait for it to present itself, it will present itself in a very explosive manner and we can get into a panic mode.
“We don’t want to have that. That is why are encouraging the state governments to go into the local communities to ensure that they search for those infected with this virus, test them, if they are positive, isolate them and provide care for them.”
The PTF chairman also disclosed that President Muhammadu Buhari was happy with the report presented, adding that he commended members of the task force for their efforts in creating awareness on the virus.
Commenting on the report submitted to the President, he said, “As for the content of the report, it will be premature for me to talk about it because we submitted a report, we have submitted recommendations and so we have to leave for Mr President to take a decision.
“By the time I receive his approvals, non-approvals on the recommendations we have made, we will be able to speak to the Nigerian people tomorrow (Thursday).”
