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General News of Thursday, 21 May 2020

Source: www.mynigeria.com

NCDC reveals why COVID-19 patients dance in isolation

Chikwe Ihekweazu Chikwe Ihekweazu

The Nigerian Center for Disease Control, NCDC, has revealed why some COVID-19 patients in an isolation center were seen in a viral video dancing.

The NCDC stated that COVID-19 doesn't have the same effect on all infected persons and that some are not badly affected by it.

This was disclosed by Chikwe Ihekweazu, the director-general of the NCDC, while speaking on Thursday during a Channels Television programme.

He said: “I think people really need to understand why people are being put in these centres. Normally, you only go into a hospital when you’re ill, get a diagnosis, and then you are sometimes admitted if you’re very ill.

“But in this case, following the experience from other countries, we made a decision as a country to also put people in isolation centres not just because they are ill on their own but in order to stop them from transmitting this virus to others.”

He also stated that those he saw in isolation during his visit to China “could exercise and dance because it is not easy to be somewhere, in isolation for three to four weeks when you are not physically ill”.

“So, these are things we have to use to reassess our decisions. It is very difficult to make decisions based on one viral video. One Whatsapp video does not represent the experience of people across the country,” the NCDC DG added.

“It is very important that as leaders we are not pushed down a decision path because one video happened to go viral. Many people in these centres around the country are complying.”