The number of daily coronavirus cases is coming fast and thick now as the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) has confirmed 238 new cases, the highest daily tally yet. This comes even as the country has gotten a new record each day for the past four days. With this latest update, Nigeria’s total confirmed cases now surpasses the 2,000 mark to finish at 2,170 (1st of May, 2020).
With 92 new cases, Kano maintained its position at the top of the daily records for the second consecutive day. The state now has the highest number of cases reported in a day by any state, surpassing 87 cases by Lagos on April 29. This leaves Kano with 311 total confirmed cases.
Abuja recorded its first big daily tally in a while with 36 new coronavirus cases, ending the day with 214 total cases. For the first time ever, Lagos was third on the daily update log with 30 cases to finish the day with 1,009 total cases.
The northeast story
5 out of 6 northeastern states made today’s list, making it the region with the highest representation on the daily update. Gombe still leads the northeastern states with 16 new cases, which leaves it in 4th spot with 92 cases.
Borno is right behind Gombe as its 3 new cases bring its total to 69. With 10 new cases, Bauchi jumped two places to finish the day at 7th position with 48 total cases. Yobe and Adamawa both have 3 and 2 cases each. As usual, the northeast is witnessing a very gradual albeit devastating rise in coronavirus cases.
Debutants
No new states joined the Covid-19 register within the last 24 hours. This means 34 states along with the FCT have seen cases. Thus, only Cross River and Kogi are yet to record any cases.
Like I always say, it is still unclear whether the lack of cases reflects an actual lack of cases or whether tests are simply not being carried out in those states.
Recoveries, deaths and active cases
According to the latest update, 32 new recoveries were registered in the last 24 hours to bring the total number of discharged cases to 351, up from 319. This sends the recovery ratio falling slightly from 16.5% to 16.1%.
For Covid-19 mortality, 10 new cases were recorded in the last day to bring the total number of deaths to 68, up from 58 recorded the day before. As it stands, Nigeria’s death rate is 3.1%.
With 238 new cases, the total number of active cases in Nigeria is now 1751. This means 80.6% of cases are still active, up from 80% recorded the day before.
Global recovery rate is currently 31.8%, death rate is 7%, while 61% of global cases remain active.
Covid-19 testing in Nigeria vs the Ghana model
Recently, Ghana became only the second African country to complete more than 100,000 Covid-19 tests (113,497). But even with that immense number of tests, confirmed coronavirus cases in that country is 2,074. With 2,170 total cases, Nigeria has overtaken Ghana while carrying out only 15,759 tests.
One can only imagine what the total number of confirmed cases will be when Nigeria eventually hits the 100,000 testing capacity within a far superior population of more than 200 million. This, once again, calls to question whether relaxing the lockdown would be a good idea. But of course, owing to present hunger vs coronavirus reality, many Nigerians will agree it is.
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