Nigeria on Sunday recorded its lowest daily COVID-19 infections since the beginning of the second wave in December 2020.
The 520 new cases reported in 19 states on Sunday indicated a significant decrease from the 1,143 reported in the previous 24 hours.
Sunday’s relatively low figure occurred largely because no data was included from Lagos, the epicenter of the disease in Nigeria, which on Saturday recorded almost a third of the day’s total.
No reason was given by the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) for the non-inclusion of data from Lagos.
A similar situation has occurred twice this year with NCDC saying Lagos State health authorities did not turn in samples.
States are largely in charge of coronavirus management and response while the NCDC supports and receives daily reports from them.
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The daily infection update is then published by the NCDC which ultimately serves as the yardstick Nigeria’s COVID-19 outbreak is measured.
In the past, some states that normally record daily cases, such as Kano, did not record new cases on particular days because no test was carried out on those days, largely due to lack of reagents or workers protest.
Lagos, however, remains the epicentre of the virus in Nigeria with over a third of the total infections.
Nearly 50,000 infections and about 370 deaths have been recorded in the commercial city.
Meanwhile, Sundays’ 520 new cases raised Nigeria’s infection tally to 146,184.
Deaths
The daily deaths from the disease also reduced with only five fatalities on Sunday compared to the 37 deaths recorded between Friday and Saturday.
A total of 1,752 people have now died from the highly infectious disease.
More than 23,500 patients are still bedridden receiving treatment for COVID-19 in hospitals across the nation.
Meanwhile, a total of 120,838 people have recovered after treatment out of the over 146,000 infected.
Specifics
The 520 new cases were reported from 19 states – Ondo (120), Borno (41), Ebonyi (37), Benue (33), Plateau (30), FCT (29), Nasarawa (25), Ogun (25), Edo (24), Osun (24), Katsina (22), Kaduna (21), Niger (20), Kwara (14), Ekiti (13), Yobe (10), Oyo (4), Bayelsa (1), and Jigawa (1).
Ondo led in Sunday’s tally with 120 new cases followed by Borno with 41.
As Nigerians continue to await COVID-19 vaccines, officials have warned against violations of safety guidelines issued to curtail the spread of the virus.
The law has five sections which include: Restrictions on Gatherings; 1) Operations of Public Places; 2) Mandatory Compliance with Treatment Protocols; 3) Offences and Penalties; 4) Enforcement and Application; and 5) Interpretation and Citation.
Since the pandemic broke out in February last year, Nigeria has carried out over 1.3 million tests.
