SAN FRANCISCO, June 12, (THEWILL) – The Federal Government has downplayed the possibility of imposing another total lockdown on parts of the country to mitigate the rising spread of the coronavirus in the country.
Boss Mustapha, Chairman of the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19, made this known at the regular press briefing by the task force in Abuja, saying another lockdown might not be necessary.
He said the federal government in terms of strategic implementation of its policy would not be looking towards that direction as the country cannot be moving forward and begin to move backward again.
His clarification was in response to a suggestion seeking to know if the federal government might be contemplating another review of the total lockdown in the light of the exponential daily increase in the number of cases.
He explained that the federal government would rather concentrate on how to strengthen what it had put in place, as well as to ensure compliance with all other non-pharmaceutical interventions already developed.
”I have indicated in my first address on this subject that we will study the situation, look at it and see how we are going. And if there is need for review that such will be advised by data, by science, by experiences of other jurisdictions and by the peculiarities of our environment.
”To go back to a total lockdown must be taken into context of what we do desire to achieve after we locked down for about four or five weeks and see how we fare. So, the issue of review might not have that in contemplation because you can’t move forward and begin to move backward again.
”In terms of strategic implementation of our policy, we might not be looking towards that direction, but we might be looking at how to strengthen what we have put in place, how to ensure compliance and all other non-pharmaceutical interventions we have put in place,” Mustapha said.
According to him, the country has got to the state where every Nigerian must take responsibility and take ownership of how to navigate the pandemic to stay alive and survive it adding that government was working with community and religious leaders and all forms of informal leaderships to cede the ownership of fighting the virus to the people.
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