The Presidential Task Force on Covid-19 has said it is considering the possibility of imposing lockdown in some states of the federation following an alarming rising case of infections recorded in the states recently.
PTF National Incident Manager, Mukhtar Muhammed, who disclosed this on Friday. Identified the states to be likely affected as Abuja, Lagos and Plateau States.
He said the data from these three states showed that their urban local governments are the worst hit amid the second wave of the pandemic in Nigeria.
According to data by the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, Lagos (46,935 cases), Abuja (16,470 cases), Plateau (7,801) have recorded the highest number of Covid infections and fatalities in Nigeria in the last eleven months.
The PTF officials said this while featuring on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily today.
Mukhtar noted that much as the federal government does not want to disrupt the economic activities in the areas cited the development has convinced it that something must be done to regulate the activities there.
When asked of the possibility of a targeted lockdown and not a total lockdown based on data of hotspot areas, Muhammed said, “That is exactly what we did, we have been analysing the data and we have been looking at the geographical areas that have been most affected and the different age groups.”
“Certainly, even if we are going to have a lockdown, it is not going to be a total lockdown. A couple of weeks back, we analysed the data and we identified the hotspot local government areas.
“Mostly, the areas affected are the urban local governments in Lagos, Abuja, Kaduna, Plateau. Even in most other states, it is the urban areas that are involved. So, if we are going to have any restriction, it will be in these areas.
“The urban areas are the most affected and that is why we have these super-spreaders and that is where we are going to target. We have analysed that and we are advising the states based on the data that these are the focused areas where these transmissions are more than the others,” he added.
