COVID-19 Update: Why the number of coronavirus cases is reducing - Presidential Taskforce

Nigerians have been left in shock recently after cases of covid-19 kept reducing for the past few days, but the PTF recently gave reasons for the low number of cases. 

Earlier today being August 5th, 2020, President Buhari had a brief discussion with the PTF on how they can fight off the deadly virus from the country. As of last week, they extended the ease of lockdown by one week, so by tomorrow, we expect new updates on the third phase of ease of lockdown. 

However, it is now claimed by the chairman and secretary to the government, Boss Mustapha that the Sallah celebration which held last week caused a reduced number of tests daily. 

In his words;

 ''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.

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.”

On the part of the third phase of ease of lockdown, he revealed that by tomorrow, Thursday, 6th of August, new directives will be released;

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).''