Lagos state government has made yet another startling revelation concerning the fight against COVID-19 in the state.

 

The state governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, said the state will be overwhelmed with large number of COVID-19 cases soon.

 

The governor said this Impending occurrence is as a result of the number of samples that have been tested in the state, adding that over 7000 samples have been tested.

 

He said, “We are pretty much getting to the peak season. We will soon see a large number because testing is now wrapped up. It is a public health issue and we needed to take our protocols from NCDC and other international organisations.

 

 

 

 

“Testing kits were rationalised and we could not do more than we were given. Even the accreditation requires processes. We have learnt it now and we are applying it.”

 

Sanwo-Olu who spoke during an instalive interview with CNN on Wednesday, also said late closure of airport and border was responsible for the spread of the disease.

 

He averred that Lagos was prepared to curb the spread of COVID-19 but had to wait for the Federal Government to shut airport, seaport and land borders.

 

 

 

 

It would be recalled, that Nigeria, though, recorded its first COVID-19 case on February 27,   the country’s airports, seaports, and borders were not shut until March 29.

 

By the time the president ordered the closure of the country’s airports, seaports, and borders, Nigeria had recorded 111 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and one death.

 

 

 

 

When asked about the state’s level of preparedness, Sanwo-Olu said, “Given the population that we have, we are a bit ahead in terms of preparation, as a state, but we are sub-national. We couldn’t give directives as to when Nigeria should close the airport, seaport, or in-land border.

 

 

 

 

“We don’t have control over that. We were just wrapping up our own facilities and the training officials, and that was why we were able to track the index case over two months now.

 

 

 

 

“In the country, 33 or 34 states have had one case or the other. For us, it is a double X thing. The population is huge, so we will be a fool of ourselves to just think that it is going to be a spike and we will be out of it. Because we did not close all of the importations early and people were not also doing full isolation when they came, it was really difficult for us to do contact tracing before it got to the community – which is where we are now.”