The Federal Government has directed military personnel to monitor and enforce adherence to non-pharmaceutical interventions on public transport including wearing face masks and maintaining social distancing to arrest possible return of third wave of COVID-19 pandemic to Nigeria.
The government explained that the stringent preventive measures was borne out of rising cases of COVID-19 variants in India, Brazil and Turkey and disturbing records of fatalities in the affected countries.
Mukhtar Mohammed, the National Incident Manager of the Presidential Steering Committee on COVID-19 (PSC), Mukhtar Mohammed, who announced the roll back of the preventive measures during press briefing by the committee in Abuja,disclised that gatherings of religious groups, weddings and the likes, have been reduced to 50 percent attendance, while official engagements, meetings and conferences should continue to hold virtually.
He added that event centres and night clubs are also to remain closed while curfew has also been reinstated from midnight to 4am.
He implored state governments to enforce these guidelines with violators made to appear before mobile courts and pay fines.
He added:“Last week on 26th of April, the PSE took a precautionary step by restricting travel from three countries, Brazil, India and wherever observed high incidence of cases have a totally different and widespread prevalence for virus.
“The PSC continues to reinforce the surveillance system and the country’s points of entry. While our vaccine rollout has began there is a shortage in global supplies affected by the current situation in India. These translates to a delay in vaccinating a large proportion of the population and therefore a risk of a large outbreak, especially in the context of poor adherence to the recommended public and social gatherings.
“There are strong concerns about the non compliance to public health and social measures, which are contained in the health protection regulation 2021. “Specifically, the level of adherence to the use of face mask, physical distancing, temperature checks in public spaces, hand washing, and limitations placed on large gatherings remain very poor, in some areas these are even non existent.
“In line with increasing risk of certain cases, the PSC is therefore maintaining enforcement of the COVID-19 Health Protection Division. This is to mitigate the risk of a spike in new cases, while the nationwide vaccine continues.
292320cookie-checkFG Directs Soldiers To Enforce COVID-19 Restriction Order
