The Lagos State Government is projecting that the coronavirus pandemic may explode to 39,000 cases across Nigeria in the worst case scenario.
There are currently 81 confirmed cases in the country, 52 of which are in Lagos State alone.
The figure rose by 16 from the 65 recorded on Thursday, the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) said late Friday.
Hundreds of Nigerians who were caught unawares by the ban on international flights into the country on account of the pandemic are now trapped at the nation’s borders, desperately seeking to get back home.
Sixteen of them, all of whom are students, were yesterday rescued at the Seme borders by the Lagos State Government, which also warned residents to brace up for tougher measures in the bid to curtail the spread of the infection.
Singer Davido revealed that his fiancee, Chioma Rowland, had tested positive for coronavirus, 13 days after arriving from London.
Davido said in a statement that Chioma tested positive following a test conducted on himself, his baby, fiancee and 28 others, whom he had been exposed to.
The Ministry of Youth and Sports Development said it had received the nod of President Muhammadu Buhari to convert four federal government owned stadia and the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) orientation camps across the country to temporary isolation centres for Coronavirus cases.
Giving an update on the pandemic on Friday, Lagos State Health Commissioner Akin Abayomi said that “our mathematical modeling shows that the worst-case scenario is that we may see up to 39,000 cases in Lagos.”
But he said the figure might not go beyond 13000 “if everyone practices good social distancing.”
He added: “If we add social distancing to active contact tracing, then we will be able to bend the curve further.
“The figures may seem alarming at this point, but this is just to emphasise to the Lagos community to follow instructions of the incident commander to make sure that we practice social distancing.
“Looking at the same time frame from the introduction of the index case, you can see that Lagos State is not seen anywhere near what Spain, Italy, and Iran are showing.
“At two or three weeks of our index case, we are flat and at week four, we have 37 cases; while at the same fourth week, Italy, Iran, and Spain had more than 20,000 cases. So, we are doing something right in the state.”
The commissioner said six of the cases in the state were still in the ship that brought them to Nigeria.
“We will be finding ways to evacuate them,” he said.
Shedding light on the various cases, he said: “70 per cent of the patients are male and 30 per cent are female, one infant, and a young person under 30 years.
“We have above age 60 years too. Again, 82 per cent of the cases are imported and 14 percent are direct contact, while we have no idea where 2 per cent contracted it from.”