COVID-19: Quarantined Imo hotel staff, guests test negative, discharged

The Imo State government said on Saturday that staff of Fancy Hotel, Umuguma, Owerri and their guests have been discharged after they were quarantined for 14 days.

The staff and the guests, who had been under quarantine after Christigonus Aguwa, the owner of the hotel, believed to have been infected with the dreaded COVID-19 disease visited the hotel, were also said to have tested negative for the virus.

The state Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Declan Emelumba, disclosed this in a statement in Owerri.

According to him, the government decided to discharge them after 14 days that they were quarantined and monitored on the virus and none of them tested positive.

The statement reads: “Staff and guests at Fancy Hotel in Umuguma in Owerri who have been quarantined by Imo State government for two weeks now over concerns that they may have been exposed to possible Coronavirus infection were released yesterday after being confirmed of being free of the virus.

“Imo State government sealed the hotel two weeks ago and barred staff and guests from going out of the hotel. The action was based on information that the owner of the hotel, Aguwa Osuagwu, visited there upon his return from a trip to South Africa, raising fears that he might be a COVID-19 carrier hence, the need to isolate those who were there when he visited.

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“However, the government effected the release of the affected persons after 14 days of isolation because none of them manifested signs or symptoms of the virus

“The peculiar case of the said Osuagwu did not expose any Imo person to the danger of COVID-19.

“Aguwa had a long battle with a complex heart condition and lung failure after he was shot in the chest sometime around 2012.

“By the time he visited Owerri, he did not have coronavirus and that his two relatives in his village he stayed with during his visit have all tested negative to the virus. Also, his wife and children who were with him and the driver who drove him around have all tested negative to the virus

“Imo people to discountenance the misinformation by detractors and remain rest assured that the Osuagwu saga never exposed any person in Imo state to the danger of Coronavirus.”

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