COVID-19 third wave: States run out of vaccine, 9,057 travellers disappear

There are strong indications that Nigeria is  gradually approaching  the third wave of COVID-19 with  the steady rise  in  positive  cases of the virus in the last one week.

The PUNCH  on Sunday gathered that  the  fear that  the third  wave  might be  deadlier than the two previous ones  was heightened by the fact that the country recorded Delta variant of the virus last week when most states had exhausted their vaccine doses.

According to reliefweb.int, the Delta variant has been confirmed in 22 African countries and has been found to spread 225 per cent faster than the original virus.

No fewer than 5,600 people across Africa died from COVID-19 in the first week of July.

Lagos State, which was the epicentre of the virus in Nigeria during the first and the second waves, on Sunday said the bed occupancy in its isolation centres had increased from one per cent to six per cent.

The Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, in a statement on Sunday, said only one per cent of the states’ residents had received COVID-19 vaccines, adding that the state was targeting 60 per cent for herd immunity.

He also lamented that  between May 8 and 7 July, 2021, 18 per cent (9,057) of  50,322 “passengers of interest” who  arrived in Lagos via the Murtala Mohammed Airport could not be reached for mandatory isolation.

The governor said these as the Nigeria Centre For Disease Control on admitted steady rise in COVID-19 cases in the country in the  last  one week.

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