BREAKING: Imo State Gets First Coronavirus Case as Borno Records 150% Increase in 24 Hours

Imo State has joined the growing list of states with coronavirus cases as the southeastern state entered NCDC’s register with its very first case. This came to light as the NCDC updated its log with 87 new cases in the country.

With 33 new cases, Lagos continues its dominance on the daily register, bringing its total number of confirmed coronavirus cases to 689. This figure represents only a 5% increase and is a tremendous improvement compared to the 14% increase recorded 24 hours before. This is also the first time in 3 days that the state didn’t break its own daily record.

Lagos’ highest daily record stands at 80 cases (April 24).

Abuja is still second on the chat even though the FCT didn’t record any new cases in the last 24 hours. After a one-day reprieve, Kano returns to the chart with 4 new cases, bringing its total tally to 77 cases.

Worst-hit states

Borno managed to outdo everyone else on the daily record as the northeastern state recorded a shocking 18 new cases. This brings the total number of cases to 30, up from just 12 and represents a 150% day-on-day increase.

While this is huge, it still doesn’t beat Gombe, another northeastern state which recorded 233% increase on April 24.

Osun was also one of the worst-hit states in the last 24 hours. With 12 new cases, the southwestern state found itself with a total of 32 cases, up from 20 it had just 24 hours before. This represents a tremendous 60% increase.

Debutants

As noted earlier, Imo state has finally joined the fray with its first case of Covid-19. This means the southeastern state joins Benue, Adamawa and Plateau all with one case each.

This also means there has been a debutant state in four consecutive days; Plateau, Adamawa, Zamfara and now, Imo.

28 states plus the FCT now have at least one case of Covid-19. Eight states that are yet to make it into NCDC’s log are; Cross River, Kebbi, Kogi, Nassarawa, Taraba, Yobe, Ebonyi and Bayelsa.

Recoveries, deaths and active cases

According to the NCDC update, 14 recoveries and discharges were recorded. This is an improvement from 11 recoveries recorded 24 hours ago. This brings the total number of recoveries to 222, up from 208. This, however, couldn’t prevent the nation’s recovery rate from taking a slight dip from 19% down to 18.7%. Global recovery rate stands at 28.6%.

The number of deaths wasn’t as encouraging though as 4 new deaths within the last 24 hours bring Nigeria’s total Covid-19 deaths to 35, up from 31. This is the highest daily death tally within the last 7 days and it isn’t surprising that it had a negative effect in the country’s death rate which now stands at 2.9%, down from 2.8% it recorded 24 hours ago.

Global death rate currently stands at 6.9%.

The number of active cases in Nigeria now stands at 925. This means that 78.2% of cases are still active. On the global scene, 64.3% of cases are still active.

NCDC DG defends Nigeria’ poor testing rate

Currently, Nigeria has tested over 10,000 people so far. And currently, the testing capacity isn’t even up to 1,000 in a day. This has raised fears that there may be a lot more cases that are undetected due to the poor rate of testing, a situation NCDC DG, Chikwe Ihekweazu has described as ‘managed acceleration’.

“I would rather go a little bit slower and get it right than speed into a situation that we will end up regretting,” the DG explained the nation’s slow testing rate during a briefing by the World Health Organization.

Be that as it may, there are valid concerns that the slow rate of testing is leading to slower rates of detection of cases which in turn gives a lot time for undetected carriers to spread the virus.