COVID-19: PTF decries continued disregard for safety guidelines

The Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 on Thursday decried the continuous flouting of guidelines by Nigerians, despite the rising cases of COVID-19 infection in the country.

The National Coordinator of the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19, Dr. Sani Aliyu, who disclosed this at the 44th joint national briefing of the committee in Abuja, said the PTF continued to be very concerned about the issue of compliance with the guidelines.

According to him, the increasing flouting of the guidelines by individuals, groups and organisations was unacceptable.

He said: “COVID-19 is far from over globally, neither is it over in Nigeria.

“There is no doubt that a lot of community transmission is happening and it continues to increase across the states.

READ ALSO: COVID-19: It’s still unsafe to reopen schools, PTF tells state govts

“Now more than ever before, if you go out you’re more likely to get COVID-19 than before.

“Your risk of contracting the virus because of the numbers we have now is more than three, four weeks or five weeks ago when we had a lockdown, so there is really no room or relaxation at this point.

“The reason we had to relax the lockdown was in order to sustain the livelihood of Nigerians, particularly those who depend on a daily income for survival as well as to sustain the economy.

“But it was not because COVID-19 has gone and it wasn’t because we should be more relaxed in terms of our prevention measures.”

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