The Presidential Task Force (PTF) on COVID-19 has submitted its interim Report to President Muhammadu Buhari.
The task force led by its Chairman and Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Mr Boss Mustapha, submitted the report to the president on Wednesday at the State House, Abuja, behind closed doors.
Speaking to State House correspondents after the submission, Mustapha said the president was pleased with the content of the report.
“Basically, the report is a capsulation of how we have come from where we started.
“We looked at the last one month and we have realized that there has been a global increase in terms of infections, we looked at the global statistics,” he said.
Mustapha noted that as of July 4, the number of infections globally was about 10 million but within a period of one month, from the July 4 to Aug. 4, there was an increase of almost eight million as the figure went up to 18 million.
“Similarly in Africa, by the 4th of July, we had about 300,000 infections but by Aug. 4, it rose to over 800,000.
“Similarly in Nigeria, by July 4, we had about 28,000 infections but by yesterday (Aug. 4), we had about 44,000.
“So, all over the world the figures have increased. What message does that convey to us as a people and as a nation? That we are not out of the woods.
“The pandemic is on, the virus is ravaging and you know cumulatively, with the increase in the numbers there are increase in fatalities.
“On the African continent, if you look at what is happening in South Africa, the figures have gone beyond half a million infections,” he said.
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Mustapha therefore, called on state governments to intensify search of infected persons in the local communities to check community transmission in the country.
He said the call had become imperative because people had returned from Sallah celebration and the possibility of spreading the virus was very high.
He said: “But I know that in the next couple of days, the testing will be rampant because people would have come out of the Sallah celebrations and come back to work, the subnationals and local governments will begin to go into the communities to search because this is the point at which you have to go into the local communities and begin to search.
“If you don’t do that, with the community transmission that has cascaded into the local communities, if you wait for it to present itself, it will present itself in a very explosive manner and we can get into a panic mode.
“We don’t want to have that, that is why we are encouraging the state governments to go into the local communities to ensure that they search for those infected with this virus, test them, if they are positive, isolate them and provide care for them.”
The PTF chairman also expressed reservations over the way and manner the COVID-19 protocols were being enforced in the states, noting that the pandemic had succeeded in exposing the weaknesses of almost all systems not only in Nigeria but worldwide.
“It’s enforcement that has largely been lacking and my appeal is that the subnationals should ensure enforcement.
“As a matter of fact, when we listed some of our challenges, that was top on the list; lack of enforcement of even the regulations that have been put in place.
”But you see, the issue of enforcement has been lacking and it’s not only in this area and like I keep saying most times that COVID-19 has exposed the weaknesses of our systems, all systems, not only the Nigerian system, even the American system, its inadequacies, despite its 300 years of democracy, have been exposed by COVID-19.
“If not how can a President be arguing with the mayor of a city as to who has authority over what happens? It means there’s a big gap in that system.
“I believe if we can just work on the enforcement aspect of it, which is the responsibility of the subnationals, we will go a long way,” he said.
NAN
