Decline in COVID-19 cases due to Sallah break, fatigue of health workers, we’ll increase search for more cases —PTF

The Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 (PTF), on Wednesday said the recent low figures of COVID-19 positive cases recorded in the country was due to the Sallah break declared in the country and fatigue on the part of Health workers.

Chairman of the task force, Boss Mustapha stated this in an interview with State House correspondents after he led members of the task force to present its interim report to the President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

According to Mustapha, who is also the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), the President was happy with the report presented, adding that he commended members of the task force for their efforts in creating awareness on the virus.

The SGF further disclosed that the PTF would release fresh directives tomorrow (Thursday) once the President endorses its recommendations.

“As for the content of the report, it will be premature for me to talk about it because we submitted a report, we have submitted recommendations and so we have to leave for Mr President to take a decision.

“By the time I receive his approvals, non-approvals on the recommendations we have made, we will be able to speak to the Nigerian people tomorrow (Thursday)”, he said.

Speaking further, Mustapha said: “If you noticed, as we celebrated those discharges, there has also been a decrease in the testing.

“In the last couple of days, we tested just barely 2,000 across the nation, but we have a testing capacity of much more thousands than 2,000.

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“Another reason is that everybody is still in Sallah mood, even the essential workers. Remember when I talked of fatigue, this is part of it.

“But I know that in the next couple of days, the testing will be rampant because people would have come out of the Sallah celebrations and come back to work.

“The sub nationals and local governments will begin to go into the communities to search because this is the point at which you have to go into the local communities and begin to search.

“If you don’t do that, so much is happening as a result of the community transmission that has been cascaded into the local communities that if you wait for it to present itself, it will present itself in a very explosive manner and we can get into a panic mode.

“We don’t want to have that. That is why are encouraging the state governments to go into the local communities to ensure that they search for those infected with this virus, test them, if they are positive, isolate them and provide care for them.”

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