₦airaland Forum

This is lovely. As I keep saying, we should be on the phone with any company or country that can possibly provide us with efficient tests. Coronavirus is a fast moving virus and fast testing is crucial to keeping it contained. The faster we can test, the faster we can start tracing the contacts of infected people and stop wasting the time of people who are not infected.

Mikehot:
But what confuses me is that for the months this virus has spent you mean no scientist or scholar globally has a solution for this?

WHO is testing 4 drugs as we speak. One of them is chloroquine, a generic drug which used to be very cheap. A vaccine takes at least 12 months to develop but we will definitely get one eventually. The problem with this Coronavirus is that it moves so fast. By the time the vaccine is ready...

The World Health Organisation (WHO) advisory is to test, test and test.

WHO: Test, test, and test
Ekiti: Understood. Commencing total shutdown.

They are going to spend a lot of time, energy and money trying to enforce this so-called “full and total shutdown”. They could have used the same time, energy and money to enforce social distancing rules and ensure that people use face-masks in public, but the idea of a “total shutdown” is cool right now, so that’s what they are doing. Anyone who announces a “total shutdown” of anything receives mindless praise from the #ShutDownNigeria crowd, and who doesn’t love to be praised?

Two laboratories in a country of 190 million?
I wonder how many tests they can conduct per day. If it’s a high figure this could be significant.

ladyGKilaBCrueD:
How could this possibly affect Nairaland?

My business does not run on food and medicine. What happens if my inverter or generator gets damaged and I need spare parts from Lagos? Coronavirus is a complicated problem, and it requires brainy solutions. Simplistic solutions like randomly shutting things down won't cut it.

This is unwise. I hope it doesn't affect Nairaland. The #ShutDownNigeria people don't have a very deep understanding of how an economy works. The vast majority of business activities in a developing country like Nigeria are essential. Very few people go to Lagos just for fun. Our leaders think that shutting things down is a viable alternative to massive testing and isolation of those who test positive, and sadly, we are cheering them on. There is no quick fix to the Coronavirus. There is no alternative to massive testing, isolation and contact tracing. We have to be smart.

Shutting down a country to stop a virus is like shooting a man dead to kill the sickness in his body. Does it work? Probably. But it's also unwise. I say instead of that, find a drug that targets the sickness in his body and kills it without killing the man. That's the only real solution to this issue.

There are only two countries whose efforts to beat the Coronavirus have been really successful. China and South Korea. I suggest that they are the only people that we should be listening to. They both encourage the widespread use of facemasks. They both do massive testing and isolation of infected people. China shut down part of their country but South Korea didn't do that despite having around 1,000 new cases per day at peak. They just continued to do every smart thing that could reduce the rate of transmission of the virus, and it worked and is working.

If you put a mask on every face, educate everybody about how to conduct their business without spreading the virus, and do massive testing of all people suspected to have the virus, and that doesn't work (it will), that's when you can start thinking of shutting things down. Our politicians won't even distribute face-masks to market women in Lagos who are begging them for it, or wear them, but they want to #ShutDownNigeria.

How will it affect Nairaland? Here is a short part of the answer to that:

Seun:
My business does not run on food and medicines. What happens if my inverter or generator gets damaged and I need spare parts from Lagos?Coronavirus is a complicated problem, and it requires brainy solutions. Simplistic solutions like randomly shutting things down won't cut it.

Shutting down everything can slow down the spread of the virus, but it comes at a great cost. There are more intelligent ways to slow down the spread of the virus.

One of them is enforcing social distancing and the use of face-masks everywhere, and testing anyone who is suspected of having the virus due to symptoms like fever and dry cough without malaria or typhoid, or due to having had recent contact with someone who tested positive, and then separating the infected until they test negative and are no longer shedding the virus.

The mask and test approach requires brains and does not involve destroying your economy and starving the poor, and has worked perfectly in South Korea. The lockdown ‘solution’ is simplistic and dodgy and hasn’t actually worked anywhere except in China, where the government also did the things that South Korea did, and whose statistics are not necessarily true.

ttmacoy:
Please stop decieving yourself. You really think Nigeria only has 80 cases and yet It has reached the presidency and the likes of El Rufai.

The President and "the likes of El-Rufai" live in a circle of super-rich people who regularly travel to countries like the US and UK that are currently being ravaged by the disease. They ride air-conditioned cars and private jets, work in air-conditioned offices and live in air-conditioned houses on whose surfaces the virus can survive for days. They rarely use personal protective equipments like face-masks because they don't want to look silly, yet they meet and shake hands with numerous people every day. It is not surprising that people in these circles got infected, and it does not necessarily imply that the disease is prevalent in our general population of suffering and smiling people who sleep, travel and work in the heat. I’m not saying that they don’t have it; I’m saying that we don’t know, and we won’t know until we start testing them.

They are not running from the virus. They don’t want to be trapped in Nigeria; that’s all. Especially if we enact an impractical #TotalShutdown.

Why would you shut your border over one case? This is entirely illogical to me. Perhaps they know something I don’t know.

HMMD:
But, facemask is proven to be ineffective.

Face masks do not make you invincible or immune to the virus, but:
1) If you are infected, with or without symptoms, wearing a face mask reduces your risk of infecting people around you when you cough or talk.
2) If you wear a mask and then touch a contaminated object, your face-mask will prevent you from touching your nose or mouth by mistake.
3) Yes, wearing a mask reduces your risk of infection by the Coronavirus because it will trap droplets of mucus and saliva from infected people.

Given the above and a few moments of thought, it is very easy to see that the widespread usage of face masks in any country will drastically reduce the rate at which the disease spreads, especially if people in that country continue to follow other precautions like washing their hands.

Why not just print some fliers, and send them to the hoods? One Mama in my area was hearing of the benefits of handwashing for the first time yesterday.

Lots of people are dying in the countries relying on handwashing, while countries that enforce the wearing of masks are making big gains. Washing of hands will not help you when an asymptomatic carrier coughs in your face or screams at you and you inhale little droplets of his mucus or saliva. Physical distancing will not help you when you are on a queue to buy food or drugs and people are jostling to get in front of you.

You are absolutely right about the need for education, but teaching people to wash their hands won’t cut it. People need to wear face-masks.

Personal protective equipments (PPE) are hot right now. Face masks, respirators, full body suits, face shields, goggles, gloves, etc.

I’m quite confident that the extreme heat has helped us. I don't think any virus can survive for long on any surface exposed to our roasting sunlight. But we are going into the rainy season, when most days will be cool and cloudy, so let’s get our act together ASAP.

sapientia:
I believe Nigeria have more than 100k cases now.
That's the good part of me down playing things oo..

I wouldn't try to guess that. There are too many variables. It's best to go out there and start testing people. There's no substitute for that.

39,000 is not the worst case scenario. It could be way worse than that. Look at what's happening in New York right now. You have to test thousands of people. You have to separate infected people whether or not they're sick because like HIV, Coronavirus no dey show for face.

Can they provide the names of these people? I don't understand how they expect us to find them without knowing their names.

I thought our NCDC was better than this. There must be some mistake.

Flier:
We need vaccine not all these nonsense,either you test or not it’s useless without vaccine

The process of creating a vaccine is very slow due to biological constraints. Even if you have a vaccine, it will take a long time to vaccinate 190 million people (the population of Nigeria). So for now, we need to contain the virus by testing anybody who is suspected of having it and preventing those who test positive from spreading it to other people. Anyone who has symptoms should be tested. Anyone who has had recent contact with someone who tested positive should be tested. With fast testing and contact tracing, we can keep the disease under control. Any system that involves waiting for people to show symptoms will fail because (1) Coronavirus moves so fast (2) some people don’t have symptoms.

We should be on the phone with all of these companies. No country has reduced the scourge of the virus without testing people massively. Quarantining is overrated because some people who have the disease will not show symptoms. We need to actually test every suspected case..

Can someone convince our government to get on the phone with these people? A rapid test-kit that is also very accurate would be very helpful.

47 patients out of 74,000? I don't understand. If I were an Italian COVID-19 patient, I guess I would love to be one of those 47 lucky people.

Where is the list of the names of those people and why are you talking about them as if they are criminals? Are you even ready to test them?

If someone knows how to mass produce masks, preferably the n95 ones, so people can do their business without getting the virus, let us know.

How much of that money is going to testing so we can know who is carrying the virus? How much is going to masks so we can protect ourselves?

They don’t need to provide relief for poor Nigerians. They need to provide respirators that people can use when they have to go out. A curfew slows down the disease but it doesn’t stop it. Once a curfew is lifted the disease starts spreading fast again. We need sustainable solutions to this problem. Solutions that will allow most economic activities in the country to continue in a way that is safe. The South Koreans are the only people who should be helping us. They figured out how to beat the disease without shutting everything down.

So people in Sango Ota won’t be able to go to Alakuko under this rule?

Reference:
Seun, I said as far back as early February that this pandemic was more an economic battle than a healthcare one. Let this be clear to Nigerians. We donot have social security, we donot have medicaid and medical insurance remains in its infancy. The typical Nigerian pays his medical bills from his pocket, he will have to pay to receive Covid -19 treatmemt from a pocket that is under threat now.

As we speak even goverment doctors are being asked to source their PPE to battle this scourge. The government cannot provide the basic tools of war. That is how under resourced our goverment is. Now you ask your citizens to fight this pestilence with one economic hand tied behind their backs. How is the country going to win.

If this pestilence lasts till the end of the year, who can survive 8 months without income. Can this country survive a year without an agricultural planting season?....You shut the markets and farmers cannot sell their produce, why will they cultivate anew even as the rains have come. This thing has long term implications.

Other nations are precise and deliberate in their planning. They have an entry and exit strategy to shutting down. What is the strategy of this government in handling this crises. Please help me ask them.

You’ve said it all.

When I first saw the title I thought, Jack Ma is providing millions of respirators and test kits to help us contain the virus and prevent people from getting sick, while our people are providing hospital beds to treat those that are already sick. I was like, why not skip that step and buy coffins? Cos by the time we need those hospital beds, we will need a lot of coffins too. A good person pointed out that they will also do testing and training, so it may not be a fair criticism.

otokx:
They are just delaying the recovery period. The only solution is a 21 day total curfew

Total curfew is at best a time saving tactic. You still have to test, test, test to find those who have the virus and stop them from spreading it. A curfew without doing that will only slow the spread; it will not stop it. And once the curfew is lifted, the disease will come back.

If there are only 51 cases in Nigeria, most of whom have a history of travel abroad, why are they doing all this? Shutting down the country doesn’t solve the virus. It only gives more time for the real work: testing, isolation and treatment. So how will essential businesses run without buying things from Lagos?

pusskhole:
Guys, help a guy in need. I had contact with someone who just came back from Europe. Few days back, I developed a slight fever, cough, running nose and sneezing. Please am I safe? Can’t even sleep anymore

You need to self-isolate yourself. Even if you have the Coronavirus, there is a good chance that you will have “mild” symptoms and get better naturally. But if you don’t self-isolate you may spread it to your friends, your parents, grandparents, girlfriends, neighbours, colleagues at work, etc, and some of them will have severe symptoms and die. Unfortunately, most people are not good at self-isolation and will still spread the disease, which is why remote isolation centers are important.