More than half a million people around the world have been infected with the new coronavirus, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Friday.
More than 20,000 Covid-19 patients have died since the coronavirus disease started spreading from China late 2019 .
“These are tragic numbers, but let’s also remember that around the world, there are hundreds of thousands of survivors,” WHO chief, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, told a news conference in Geneva.
The total number of global cases now stands at 510,108 as of 1:30 p.m. ET on Thursday, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
The virus emerged in Wuhan, China, in December. It has since spread to most countries around the world, according to the World Health Organisation.
Confirmed COVID-19 cases topped 200,000 last week, and passed 300,000 on Saturday, according to Hopkins data.
The virus has infected an additional 100,000 people around the world since Tuesday, when worldwide infections passed 400,000.
The virus has now killed more than 22,290 people around the world. Roughly 120,000 people have recovered from COVID-19, according to Hopkins.
China still accounts for the most infections in a single country, according to Hopkins, but Italy is not far behind with more than 80,500 confirmed cases.
The U.S. has the third most cases of any country in the world with more than 75,200 confirmed cases, Hopkins’ data shows.
WHO officials said Monday that the spread of COVID-19 is picking up speed around the world.
“The pandemic is accelerating,’’ WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a news briefing from the organisation’s Geneva headquarters.
“It took 67 days from the first reported case to reach 100,000 cases, 11 days for second 100,000 cases, and just four days for the third 100,000 cases.’’
On Wednesday, Tedros called the virus Public Enemy No. 1 and called on countries not to squander any opportunity to save lives with aggressive mitigation measures.
“It’s a dangerous virus. We had been saying to the world the window of opportunity is narrowing and the time to act was actually more than a month ago, two months ago.
“We have overcome many pandemics and crises before. We will overcome this one, too. The question is how large a price we will pay,’’ he said.(dp
Meanwhile, the Lagos State Government has projected that the numbers of COVID-19 cases in the state might reach 39, 000, if good social distancing was not adhered to by the public.
Prof. Akin Abayomi, the State Commissioner for Health, made this known while giving the state’s analysis of the COVID-19 update on Friday in Lagos.
“Our Mathematical modeling shows that worst case scenario, we might have 39, 000 cases in Lagos State; however, if we practise good social distancing, we can limit that to about 13,000,” he said.
Abayomi said adding social distancing to active constant tracing would help to reduce the cases further, noting that the figure was minimal compared to numbers of cases in other parts of the world.
“The figures may seem alarming at this point, but this is just to emphasise the importance to the Lagos Community to follow the instructions of the Incidence Commander to ensure they practice good social distancing.
“Social distancing is the key to bring the outbreak under control, because that way, we are not giving the virus the opportunity to spread from person to person,” he said.
The commissioner said the strategies of containment and social distancing utilised by the state was yielding positive results, adding that four weeks after the first case was recorded, it had been able to minimise the spread.
Abayomi said that if the state government discovered that the public was not adhering to its social distancing directives, the state council would meet and might have to make some other pronouncements.
According to him, out of the 44 confirmed cases in the state, 70 per cent were male, while 30 per cent were female, adding that 84 per cent of the imported cases were Nigerians.
He noted that most of the cases were local transmission that had contact with people that had travelled to high risk countries, with some cases that they couldn’t trace how they contracted the virus.
Speaking on the new confirmed cases in the state, he said that seven of the cases were detected among a 51 crew members of an oil and gas vessel.
He said all the crew members were tested after one of them tested positive to the virus, leading to detection of additional six cases, adding that the remaining six cases were quarantined on the vessel and receiving treatment there.
Abayomi also disclosed that the state had dispatched a team to Seme Border to rescue 16 Nigerian students stranded at the border.
“As expected, when we close borders, we see Nigerians fly to neighbouring countries and try to enter through the land border.
“We have a situation at the Seme Border; 16 students who are trying to enter Nigeria, what they are doing outside the border, we do not know,” the commissioner said.
He said that the team would meet with the immigration service at the border, and would evacuate the students based on the state governor’s order to one of the medical facilities in the state.
The commissioner said that the students would be evaluated and tested to assess their risk level.
Besides, he added that the World Health Organisation (WHO) has not approved the use of rapid test for COVID-19.
Abayomi, therefore, warned residents against patronising medical facilities for COVID-19 rapid test.
He stressed that accuracy of most of the test was about 30 per cent, adding that such results posed a high public health risk for the citizens.
Abayomi further advised the citizens to continue to practise good respiratory hygiene and constant washing of the hands with soap and water or use of hand sanitisers to prevent spread of COVID-19.
The commissioner reassured the residents that government was implementing various strategies to ensure containment of the virus and preserve the health of citizens.
In Rivers State, Governor Nyesom Wike will, on Sunday, lead taskforce to monitor compliance on the enforcement of ban on public gatherings and places of worship.
Mr Paulinus Nsirim, Rivers State Commissioner for Information and Communications, disclosed in a statement on Friday in Port Harcourt.
Nsirim said that all the Service Commanders, Commissioner of Police and the State Director, Department of State Security (DSS) would accompany the governor.
“Any Church found to violate the directive of the state government will be closed,” the commissioner warned.
The Rivers government had embarked on sensitisation and several other measures to curb the spread of COVID-19 pandemic in the state.
