Lagos attains Covid 19 peak, people less vulnerable to attack — Health commissioner

August 15, 2020

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The Lagos State Government on Friday said its current data showed that the state had reached the peak of its COVID-19 infections and the virus may “no longer be finding vulnerable people to infect.”

The state government, however, said this peak called for continuous safe health practices as it monitored the situation, noting that the shortage of health personnel, weak health and education systems were some of the challenges being faced in the fight against the pandemic.

The Lagos State Commissioner of Health, Prof Akin Abayomi, stated these during an interview on Plus TV Africa, which was monitored by our correspondent.

Abayomi noted that the government believed that the state had reached its peak but would continue its aggressive testing mechanism with over 1000 COVID-19 tests conducted daily.

The commissioner said,

“If you look at the demographic profile of an outbreak, your peak is when the virus has probably infected a large number of people in your community and the virus is running out of numbers to infect.

“Lagos has expanded deeply its testing strategy and we test at our isolation centres and local government areas; we are looking for the footprints of the virus and what we have noticed is that the number of positive cases out of every 100 is gradually reducing. This suggests to us that we have peaked or we are passing our peak and the virus is no longer finding vulnerable people to infect. This is purely on data. It has been a data driven response in Lagos and we collect data from various sources.

“We are not really expecting a spike in Lagos as regards reopening of some economic segments, as we believe we have gotten to the peak or almost at the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Nonetheless, as we relax, we might see a bit of transmission. We are constantly refuting misinformation and educating the public about what we believe.

“Talking about challenges, we have weak health and education systems and lots of urban chaos; poor access to sanitation and power and deficit in waste management. These are some of the issues we are battling with, even within the COVID-19 pandemic. We have a severe deficit for human resources in health. This is caused by shortage of health personnel, and once we produce them, many of them live for greener pastures overseas. These are some of the major problems we are encountering.”

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