Kwara foils attempt by COVID-19 patients to escape from isolation centre

The Kwara State government has foiled a move by some COVID-19 patients who attempted to escape from the Ilorin isolation centre on Friday after testing positive for the virus.

Rafiu Ajakaye, spokesman of the state COVID-19 technical committee who revealed this in a statement on Friday, said that the attempted escape by the patients was promptly foiled leading to the arrest and return of the patients to the isolation centre after they had already scaled the fence.

“Earlier today, Friday, May 15, 2020, the government’s intelligence network uncovered a plot by some Covid-19 patients who sneaked into the state to escape,” the statement said.

The government expressed dismay that the persons were among the imported cases who intentionally violated the interstate lockdown order and came into the state.

“Security has been further beefed up at our isolation centre,” the statement added, just as it restated that “COVID-19 is not a death sentence and there is no reason why anyone would want to escape and put their own lives and the lives of others at risk.”

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This came after the Kwara State Governor, AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq, said on Friday the man in a recent video that went viral on social media was not a suspected COVID-19 patient.

The governor, who disclosed this during a visit to the state’s isolation centre in Ilorin, however, told journalists that the man was inappropriately evacuated from his home in Ilorin.

He said a call was placed and an ambulance was dispatched to the place, which is the suspected patient’s home with clear instructions for the ambulance driver to wait for the Response Team to come.

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