Nigeria

Life won’t return to normal after COVID-19 - Ihekweazu tells Nigerians

Tuesday, April 21, 2020 at 9:02 AM by Jerrywright Ukwu

- Nigerians have been informed that life won't return to normal; after the COVID-19 pandemic

- This was stated by the director-general of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), Dr Chikwe Ihekweazu

- The NCDC boss said a return to the pre-COVID lifestyle could bring about a high resurgence of the infection

The director-general, Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), Dr Chikwe Ihekweazu, has informed Nigerians that life won’t return to normal after COVID-19 pandemic.

Ihekweazu stated this while speaking on a radio programme in Lagos on Monday, April 20.

He said that a return to the pre-COVID lifestyle, once the current restrictions are relaxed, could bring about a high resurgence of the infection.

The NCDC boss also advised business owners to adjust their business model such that it is compliant to social distancing and reduces the level of interaction among people.

Life won’t return to normal after COVID-19 - Ihekweazu tells Nigerians — Dr Chikwe Ihekweazu says pre-COVID lifestyle could cause a high resurgence of infections
Source: Twitter

He stressed that Nigerians must continue to adhere to precautionary measures of basic hygiene, respiratory etiquette, use of sanitisers.

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His words: “If I were any small or big business or anything that involves interaction, I will be carefully thinking about my business model and how to adjust them to some extent.

“If I were managing a school, I will think about my break period. Do I really want to have one break period where I unleash the entire school population onto the playground? Or do I want to have a standard break period where you allow a few people out at hourly interval?

“If I were running a restaurant that has a capacity for 100, I will be thinking of how to sustain that restaurant on 40 people to enable some social distancing. These are some of the processes we all need to think about in order to reopen and go back to normal.

“We can’t reopen and go back to normal. We will immediately have a huge resurgence of the infection in our country and that is exactly what you want to protect.”

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On the unrest in some parts of the country and the possibility of extended lockdown, Ihekweazu said that the NCDC would be working hard over the next 10 days to make appreciable progress.

“We will work extremely hard over the next 10 days to make the best use of the opportunity which is probably the last window of opportunity we have to make some progress with the response.

“We are completely aware of the hard times that Nigerians are going through and we want to make sure we make progress with the response to make sure that slowly, in a calibrated way, we open up some parts of the economy to start working,” he said.

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Meanwhile, an economic expert, Femi Odewunmi, has sounded a note of warning that the aftermath of COVID-19 will put several businesses under pressure in Nigeria.