Willie Obiano, Governor of Anambra State, Southeast Nigeria says the state government has donated 450 cubic meters of oxygen to some hospitals in the state as part of efforts to managing COVID-19 resurgence in the state.
“Today, I am delighted to announce a donation of 450 Cubic meters of oxygen to select hospitals in the state to help us in the fight against the pandemic, modalities of distributing the commodities shall be worked out and announced by the Ministry of Health,” he said.
Obiano who said this in a statewide broadcast on Tuesday said the oxygen would be sourced from the State Oxygen Plant established within the premises of Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu University Teaching Hospital.
He also announced the postponement of schools’ resumption from the initial January 18 to two weeks to enable the principals and teachers to prepare for the return of students.
“We commend school proprietors and administrators in the state for their careful handling of the first wave of the pandemic,” Obiano said.
He announced other containment measures to include restriction of the population in public places to 50 persons, compulsory use of facemask outside homes and ban on nightclubs while hotels were directed to ensure strict compliance to COVID-19 protocols.
Obiano said the second wave of COVID-19 was not only real but even more deadly lamenting that residents of Anambra had dropped their level of vigilance and returned to their normal lives in spite of the fact that the virus has not gone away.
“All government offices must observe the standard COVID-19 protocols – washing of hands at the entrance, wearing of facemasks, regular use of hand sanitisers and strict observance of social distancing.”
“Nobody will be allowed into any government premises without properly wearing a face mask.”
He added that the COVID-19 Action Teams in all the 61 markets must ensure full compliance to the standard protocols, noting that they must set up a hand-washing point at the entrance to each market, take the temperature of visitors to the markets and ensure that both traders and their customers are wearing their facemasks properly.
The governor remarked that all markets in the state are given one week to set-up the necessary safety standards and ensure proper compliance, adding that any market found violating the standards after one week would be shut down.
“Transport operators are advised to revert to all the practices that helped us during the first wave of the pandemic. They must ensure social distancing inside the vehicles and maintain a passenger manifest,” he said.
“Churches and other religious organisations are advised to set up action teams and go back to the practices that helped us in the first phase of the pandemic.”
“For the sake of emphasis, nobody should go to any market, public places, church, schools, enter any transport, attend functions as stated above without properly wearing of face masks.”
Obiano assured that test centres in the state were active and ready to handle cases with impressive turnaround time with sample collection cascaded to all the 21 local government areas in the state.
According to him, the government strategies are testing, treating and tracing COVID-19 cases in line with the guidelines given by the World Health Organization and the Nigeria Centre For Disease Control (NCDC).
The first index case of COVID-19 was reported in Anambra on April 9, 2020, but the state has since recorded 110 new cases in the second wave with 13, 412 tested cases so far.
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