Dr Chike Ihekweazu, Director General of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), has said that the consequences of the protest and mass gatherings will be evident in two weeks.
According to him, the curfew imposed in different states in a bid to curb the looting of warehouses and destruction of property have slowed down COVID-19 testing.
He said the posting of COVID-19 results on their social media pages was also paused out of respect for those who lost their lives, due to the recent incidents in the country.
During a media briefing of the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 in Abuja on Monday, October 26, Ihekweazu said the nation must be careful of the expected increase in COVID-19 cases, as a result of the nationwide protests.
In his words:
“Forty to 60 per cent of our testing cases are reported from Lagos. Our labs in Lagos have not been able to perform as they normally would for the past two to three weeks.
“As we move into the next two weeks, it will not take a rocket scientist to know that we have to watch the numbers very carefully.
“The reasons are obvious; we have gathered in our masses for whatever reason and for now, we have to keep our eyes open for the potential consequences. Those consequences are not inevitable; we can still do our part to prevent them.”
