Tomorrow, Monday January 18, 2021, going by the assurances of the Federal Government, through the Ministry of Education, primary and secondary schools across the country will reopen for the second term, while most universities and other tertiary institutions have started receiving returning students, after almost a year out of school.
As cheering as the news sounds, many think that danger still lurks in the corner as Nigerian authorities and even the citizenry are ignoring the second wave of the coronavirus pandemic, despite its more ravaging impact, than the first wave.
The fear for concerned parents is that most schools, including universities, lack capacity to provide the needed protection for pupils and students, rather their focus is on making money.
As schools await reopening, markets, worship centres, clubs, event centres and other public places, which are sources of contracting the virus are still open, while air passengers are moving in and out of the country’s major airports with less checks and little compliance with the safety and health protocols. Who cares as long as money changes hands!
As well, Nigeria seems to have lost the opportunity to curtail the spread by allowing interstate travel during the festive period, hence the spike now.
“Our government always fails to learn from past mistakes. They failed to close our airspace at the wake of the first wave of Covid-19 in early 2020, again, they failed to stop flights from countries with high infection cases like the United Kingdom in the second wave and mindlessly allowed Nigerians to travel during festive season to spread the virus. The result of the failure is the sharp rise in the rate of new infections every day,” Demain Anike, a public analyst, decried.
As at today (Friday, January 15, 2021), Nigeria has recorded over 100,000 cases of coronavirus. However, the rate of new infections is alarming as the country has been recording over 1,000 new cases every day, since this year.
According to health experts, the alarming rate of new infections is enough for a second lockdown in order to curtail the spread as the country may not be in good financial position, and compliance mood to fight the pandemic like it did last year, considering that many are out there to recoup their expenses over the holiday season, as well as, settle new year bills, which are fast pilling up.
Recently, the Lagos State Safety Commission shutdown some night clubs for violating safety protocols, but all other clubs are doing same and are still open, helping to increase the infection rate.
The sad reality is that governments across the country have long relaxed in the enforcement of Covid-19 protocols, and Lagos State, which is the epicenter of the virus in Nigeria, seems to be losing out on the fight.
Lagos was a shining example in the fight against Covid-19 pandemic last year, but it seems to be sleeping now.
Truly, nobody is enforcing any law now, the masses sleep and wake at their own risks. Commuter buses, tricycle, BRT buses, other commercial transport providers and even domestic airlines no longer care about safety protocols.
There is hardly any social distancing in queue, seating arrangement, no face masks and the worst is that corporate organisations are now working full capacity, while banks care less about the queue again. Yet, Nigeria is only concerned about reeling out high numbers of new infections instead of engaging the preventive measures.
Going by the data from Lagos hospitals, the state is in trouble now as the spike in cases is overwhelming the system. According to a reliable source, the B blocks in the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH) Idi-Araba, which was closed after first wave, has been reopened and is full.
“Government is no more sponsoring Covid-19 treatments. It is you and your family. Oxygen, which is critical to staying alive, is in short supply now. From N20,000 normal price, a cylinder of oxygen goes from N50,000 to N100.000 in the black market now and out of the reach of the poor because a patient requires 8 to 16 cylinders/day to stay alive.
“Recently, all non emergencies in LUTH has been suspended and all resources are geared to Covid-19 care,” the source said.
Speaking further, the source said the masses need to protect themselves from contacting the virus as treatment is very expensive now.
“Sadly, cost of treatment is N300, 000 per day in most hospitals and at government hospitals where they claim treatment is free, family of patients will have to buy everything, especially oxygen, which is being pushed to the black market,” the source said.
Considering the reality, especially the huge cost of treatment for Covid-19, those who run out of fund are in big trouble.
Edna Amajor, a medical consultant at National Hospital Abuja, noted that the fact that most people cannot afford the high cost of tests and treatments, the vulnerable should at least protect themselves.
“Safety measures such as wearing face mask, shield, social distancing and hand hygiene may be discomfiting, but contracting the virus is not only more physically discomfiting. It could bankrupt you and your family,” she warned.
Speaking further, the pediatric doctor advised that there should be more awareness on the seriousness and prevention of Covid-19, especially to families, including wives, children and other weak links.
Fearing that the cases might overwhelm the country soon, Zakari Yahaya, a military doctor with the Ojo Cantonment, Lagos, called on government to enforce drastic measures that will pain Nigerians now but save lives because the pandemic is a ‘killing machine’, according to him.
“You need to visit hospitals now, there is no bed space. Specialists are overwhelmed already and more are catching the virus every day. Government should do the needful now, which is to enforce all preventive measures now,” the military doctor said.
In line with enforcing all preventive measures to curtail the spread of the virus, many concerned Nigerians have decried that authorities are doing little or nothing in monitoring the influx of passengers coming from countries with high cases of the new variant.
They have severally called on government to suspend arriving passengers from South Africa, United States of America and the United Kingdom, while others say the Federal Government could tighten the squeeze by creating its own isolation centres for arriving passengers rather than asking people to self-isolate, which they hardly obey, and is part of the reasons for the rise in new cases.
According to Ikechi Uko, a travel expert, the Federal Government should stop flights from the UK for at least two weeks or get ready for a second lockdown, which would worsen the country’s economy.
“There is a new strain of Covid-19 virus in the UK and this should have alerted us immediately to stop travels from the UK. We already have a new strain locally. We are unable to enforce the rule for people to put on their facemasks, how then can we enforce 14 days isolation for travellers and Covid-19 tests after seven days?
“It is easier to restrict travel from the UK for two weeks than face a second lockdown and we all know lockdown spells doom for the economy and the travel industry. The cases are rising and people are still coming back from the UK,” Uko decried.
Also toeing prevention line, John Ojikutu, an aviation security consultant and secretary general, Aviation Safety Round Table Initiative (ASRTI), decried that Nigeria failed to learn from last year’s experience, but urgently needs to correct the mistakes now.
“What we could have done this time round was to open the five international airports and restricted inbound and outbound international passengers flights of only six to each airport. None of the airlines should go to more than one airport even if it has to make multiple frequencies per day. That is the easier way to trace and track infected passengers”, he said.
Speaking further, Ojikutu, advised that no Nigerian passenger who tests positive should be allowed out of the airport, while foreign passengers that test passengers should be returned to their points of departure by the airlines that brought them.
“Government has the responsibilities of protecting Nigerians at home from those inbound passengers that are the major carriers and ‘importers’ of the pandemic. It is cheaper to do that.
“Incidentally, these are the high class of the society who generally are more mobile than the rest of the population; that is why the death rate from the pandemic is more with them than the poorer in our villages,” he explained.
As most aviation experts see travel ban as solution, Olumide Ohunayo, an aviation analyst, said that banning travels in and out of the country may have a devastating effect on the economy, rather the federal government should tightens the squeeze.
“Rather than ask passengers to isolate by themselves, a place should be designated for the isolation so that the passengers can be monitored. If we are able to monitor and ensure the tests submitted are genuine and the ones taken from here are genuine, it will be helpful”, he said.
He lamented that attention has been more to international flights, while protocols are only firm on-board the aircraft in the domestic front. “I think they should ensure that outside the aircraft, within the airport environment and travel processing, there should be adherence to distancing, mask wearing and other protocols. These protocols are now relaxed and I think they should return to these protocols. There is a need to apprehend people issuing fake Covid test certificates,” Ohunayo said.
Though it is commendable that the government reduced Covid testing period for passengers coming from countries with high cases of the new variant from 102 hours to 72 hours, aviation experts think that the government should build isolation centres for arriving passengers to ensure compliance and truly curtail the spread.
Again, with the rising cases, there is need for opening the isolation centres. Sadly, governments rushed in closing and dismantling many of them because of the huge flat in the curve of the virus in the beginning of the last quarter of 2020. But they were deceived, and now unprepared for the worse reality.
Now, private sector, corporate Nigerians and individuals who funded the isolation centres were not happy over how the Covid-19 fund was spent and may not contribute again.
“Nigerians should expect the worst as government keeps our gates open to importers of the pandemic, and has failed to enforce safety measures in the face of zero compliance by the citizens. Again, the generality of the masses, who are already down, are fearing no fall, hence the doubt of the reality of the pandemic,” an aviation experts said on condition of anonymity.
The doubt of the reality despite rising death rate, and non-compliance to safety protocols by the masses are grave concerns now as the cases are rising, health experts have warned.
