The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) has confirmed 553 New cases of Covid-19 in Nigeria. The number, the country’s largest daily accumulation yet, is a significant increase from 387 recorded the day before. Nigeria’s previous highest was 389 (May, 27).
This huge increase could be attributed to increased testing as Nigeria crosses 2,000 daily testings for the first time. Currently, the total number of confirmed cases in the country is 9,855.
Lagos continues to pull the most crowd with 378 new cases, which is the highest-ever daily tally for the state. The previous highest was 256 recorded on May 27. The latest update brings the total number of cases in Lagos to 4,755, representing 48.2% of total cases in the country.
The FCT recorded 52 new cases on the day in question to bring its total to 616, remaining third on the log. The Southsouth states are witnessing a consistent but nonetheless worrisome rise as Delta, Edo and Rivers state got 23, 22 and 14 cases respectively. The region seems to be the next Covid-19 flashpoint.
By regional representation, of the 14 states captured in the latest update, the Southwest (Lagos, Ogun, Oyo, Osun) and the Northwest (Kaduna, Kano, Katsina and Jigawa) got 4 states each. The Southsouth got 3 states (Delta, Edo and Rivers), the Northeast got 2 states (Borno and Yobe) while Plateau is the only state from the Northcentral region.
The Northeast didn’t get a single case for the second consecutive day.
Testing, recoveries, deaths and active cases
Nigeria reported a total of 2,022 new tests in the day under review to bring the total number of tests carried out so far to 60,825. The increased testing is very likely responsible for the increased number of daily confirmed cases which is something many observers have warned would happen.
It is curious though that only Lagos appears to be having a consistent pattern of growth as other states seem to ‘appear and disappear’ from the daily update at will. It gives the impression that testing in other states is quite skewed and more attention is given to Lagos to the detriment of these states.
159 new recoveries were recorded over the last 24 hours, which is a very encouraging figure. The total number of discharged cases in the country is currently 2,856 which keeps the country’s recovery rate stagnant at 28.9% for the second consecutive day.
A total of 12 new deaths were recorded in the period under review which is pretty high especially considering the figures have been quite low lately. Yesterday, for instance, only 2 new deaths were recorded. The total number of deaths currently stands at 273, giving the country a mortality rate of 2.7%. This is better than 2.8% recorded the day before.
Currently, there are 6,726 active cases in the country. This means 68.2% of total confirmed cases are resolved, a figure that has remained constant for the second consecutive day.
Africa and the World
South Africa continues to record mind-boggling numbers as 1,727 new cases were confirmed in the country in the last 24 hours to bring its total to 30,967. Egypt has the second-most cases after recording 1,367 new cases to finish the day with 23,449. Nigeria is currently third in Africa.
Egypt continues to be the Covid-19 death capital of the continent with 913 deaths. Algeria with 646 is second but barely so as South Africa has 643 deaths and is sure to overtake Algeria by the next update.
Sudan is one African country to watch out for as the rising number of cases and attendant deaths is a real cause for concern. In the last 24 hours, the country got 279 new cases and 29 new deaths. Thus with roughly half the number of cases in Nigeria (4,800), Sudan has nearly the same number of deaths (262).
There are currently 6,161,485 confirmed cases in the world. 2,738,331 have recovered while there are 371,016 total deaths.