Just 24 hours after recording one of its lowest number of cases in recent times, Nigeria has recorded its highest daily tally yet as the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) confirms 195 new cases of Covid-19 in the country for 28th of April.
This surpasses the previous highest daily figure of 117 recorded on April on April 21.
This represents a 305% increase in just one day and should represent a cause for worry, not just for the NCDC and government, but for Nigerians as a whole. The government only recently unveiled plans to relax a lockdown first imposed nearly a month ago.
Lagos continues to dominate the daily tally with 80 cases in the last 24 hours, up from 34 recorded the day before representing a daily increase of 235%. This brings the total number of confirmed cases in Lagos to 844, representing 55% of total confirmed cases in Nigeria.
Abuja witnessed a significant daily decline after recording just one new case, down from 15 new cases reported the day before. The FCT, however, still has the second-highest number of confirmed cases in the country with 158 cases.
Kano recorded its highest daily tally yet with 38 new cases confirmed in the last 24 hours. This is nearly 50% increase from 77 total cases recorded the day before. This brings the northwestern state dangerously closer to toppling the FCT in second with a new total of 115 confirmed cases.
The sharp rise in Kano state figures was expected though, as the state hasn’t tested for a while following the shutting done of its testing centre. Thus, the new figure probably represents a sum of the 3 days without testing.
Ogun state recorded 15 new cases to bring its total number of confirmed cases to 50, up from 35, indicating a 43% rise.
Debutants
Nassarawa became the latest state to join the fray after the north-central state entered the books with its index case. Yesterday marked the first day without a new state after 6 consecutive days. But today, it has resumed yet again.
This means 33 states plus FCT have coronavirus cases. The 3 states still without a case include Cross River, Kogi, and Yobe.
The northeast
The northeastern states keep churning out slow but steady numbers while gradually making their way to the top of the chat. In the latest update, Bauchi (15), Borno (11) and Gombe (10) all recorded 10 cases and above.
Furthermore, with 3 out of the 14 states documented today, the northeast has the largest representation for a single region. Like I always say, it isn’t much when compared to the Kano’s and Lagos’ but the steadiness and consistency make it a source for worry.
Recoveries, deaths and active cases
With such a mindblowing number of cases recorded in one day, one can only pray for a commensurate number of recoveries. But alas, the country recorded no new recoveries within the last 24 hours and the total number of recoveries remained stagnant at 255 for the second day in a row.
This means Nigeria’s recovery rate was sent crashing from 19% down to 16.6%. Global recovery rate currently stands at 30.4%.
4 new deaths were recorded within the last day to bring the total number of confirmed Covid-19 deaths to 44, up from 40. This therefore improves the national death ratio from 2.9% to 2.8%. Global death rate is 6.7%.
Nigeria’s number of active cases is currently 1,233. This means that 80% of cases in Nigeria are active.
Capacity for testing
The Nigerian president, Muhammadu Buhari announced on Monday that testing capacity would be boosted to at least 2,500 tests per day. While we can’t confirm if the NCDC has indeed hit that capacity, it seems likely that with more capacity for testing, we would witness ever-increasing cases of the virus.
With many Nigerians still doubting whether a relaxed lockdown would be any good, one can only hope that the nation’s capacity for detection improves as a lot would depend on that capacity in a relaxed lockdown.
The NCDC has promised to test 2 million Nigerians within the next three months. We can only hope they achieve it.
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