'Why we have high coronavirus cases in NYSC camps' - Minister

The Federal Government has said consistent testing and non-compliance to non-pharmaceutical interventions were responsible for high reported cases of COVID-19 at the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) orientation camps.

Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, said scaling up of COVID-19 testing in various orientation camps across the country had increased the number of cases in the camps.

“Two things are responsible for the high cases of pandemic reported at the NYSC camps.

“One is because of consistent testing that has been taking place in the camps. The truth of the matter is that if we ramp up testing today, there will be more cases.

“Second reason for the high cases is that people have actually let down their guards. We are no longer obeying non-pharmaceutical interventions such as the washing of hands regularly with soap and water or sanitising of hands when that (washing of hand) is not available.

“Also, wearing of face masks in public places, not gathering people for party and keeping social distancing,” he said.

According to him, Nigerians are behaving as if COVID-19 is not real.

“If over 4.2 million people have been lost to the virus worldwide and it is not abating. So, we need to take more seriousness on the protocols around COVID-19, especially on non-pharmaceutical interventions.”

The minister, however, noted that with the recent increase in cases of COVID-19, Nigeria was fully in the third wave of the pandemic and this was because the country had witnessed an increase in those who had been infected in many states since July.

He added that states like Lagos, Akwa Ibom, Plateau, Kano, Kaduna and Oyo had recorded high cases of the virus.

“These are states that are bearing the biggest burden of the pandemic. There is no gainsaying that we are already in the third wave of the pandemic. What we have done at the Presidential Steering Committee (PSC) as soon as we noticed this was to send an alert to community workers.

“And we realised that there will be more demand on infrastructure so we try to train community volunteers and also experts in intensive care so that they can respond to this new wave of COVID-19.

“Some countries are even having the 4th and the 5th waves. It is not unique to Nigeria. Because when you look at the wave, like last Saturday, it was 1,000 plus and now going to 18,000 cases in Nigeria.”

He said the government has put strict travel protocols in place to protect its citizens from being infected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Mohammed said Nigeria had been tagged as a strict country in terms of travel protocols, explaining the stand of the government was to protect its people against the spread of the virus.

“We have been accused that our rules are being stringent. We say no. We are not being tough for toughness sake. We are being tough because that is what science demands. We are tough because we want to protect our people."