Nigeria May Experience Second COVID-19 Wave As Re-infections Surge

Resident Doctors at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital, LUTH, on Monday warned that Nigerians should be wary of COVID-19 second wave as some patients discharged of COVID-19 in the past are coming down with the virus again even as they posited that recent event suggests the country is in the middle of another pandemic.

Briefing journalists, President of ARD LUTH, Dr.Judith Jolayemi called on all citizens of Nigeria, organizations, institutions, and the government to return to the status quo by reinstating the previously initiated precautionary actions towards preventing the spread of the virus.

Jolayemi said: “Schools after vacating this month maybe considered to remain closed until the epidemic curve begins to reverse.

Government at all levels should continue to enforce laws regarding adherence to safety protocols, scale-up covid-19 testing, improve infrastructure and services across boarding including the airports and ensure the delivery of Covid-19 vaccines at the earliest time possible.”

Speaking, a Senior Registrar at the LUTH COVID-19 Isolation Centre, Dr Folarin Opawoye, Nigerians attitude towards the non-pharmaceutical guideline are making the country lose the gains it achieved in the past.

Opawoye who spoke during a COVID-19 Awareness briefing as part of the Association’s Week regretted that despite the successes recorded in the fight against COVID-19, the majority of the cases they are seeing suggest huge community transmission.

“The reality is that reopening of the airport is not the major factor but what we are doing to ourselves. When you want to access COVID-19 response, I think we have done a good job because compare to what was predicted and what is going on in other parts of the world. However, we can’t rest on our success because it’s not about how we started but how we end.”

Opawoye warned that people must do their part to avoid another lockdown, “Lockdown can be challenging especially in this environment because of socio-economic indices of the people. A lot of people have to go out every day before they can eat.

“But there are so many other things we can do without going through the lockdown, if everybody is wearing their nose mask, social and physical distance, avoid unnecessary gathering and travelling as recommended by NCDC.

He disclosed that doctors are tired of managing COVID-19 patients. “There was a time we have more than 100 cases on admission at the same time, you can imagine doing ward round for them that is very hard, we can’t go back to that time, so we are pleading with everybody.

“The reality with Covid-19 is that you can’t predict who will have a negative outcome. For instance, we have discharged 98 years old and lost five years old. If you say it is people with an underline condition that are at risk, you don’t know what you are carrying in your body because many people don’t go for a routine check. We have seen many healthy people that died from covid-19. We have seen people who have it and those who contracted it from them died.”