Nigeria Records 1,617 New COVID-19 Cases, 14 More Deaths

Nigeria on Monday recorded 1,617 new cases of the novel coronavirus, according to the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control.

In a late-night tweet, the NCDC also reported an additional 14 deaths, bringing total casualties from the virus to 1,449.

Till date, Nigeria has now recorded 112,004 COVID-19 infections with 89,939 cases successfully treated and discharged.

Almost half of Monday’s cases were recorded in Lagos, with 776 infections.

Other states with new cases include Kaduna-147,,wara-131, FCT-102, Plateau-78, Edo-59 ,Ogun-53, Osun-45, Rivers-37, Taraba-36 Nasarawa-34, Adamawa-33, Kano-26, Delta-20, Ebonyi-16, Bayelsa-11, Gombe-11, and Borno-2.

Nigeria has witnessed a surge in new cases since last December when the federal government announced a second wave of the pandemic.

Earlier on Monday, Chairman of Presidential Task Force on COVID-19, Boss Mustapha said that one in every five persons tested in Nigeria within the passing week turned out positive.

Despite the surge, schools reopened in most states across the country under a federal government directive,

While critics have faulted the re-opening, the government says return to the classrooms should be done in line with COVID-19 regulations such as social distancing and wearing of face-masks.

Global Update

The novel coronavirus has killed at least 2,031,048 people since the outbreak emerged in China in December 2019, according to an AFP tally from official sources at 1100 GMT on Monday.

More than 94,964,590 cases of coronavirus have been registered. Of these, at least 57,817,100 are now considered recovered.

These figures are based on daily tolls provided by health authorities in each country and exclude later re-evaluations by statistical organisations, as has happened in Russia, Spain and Britain.

Over Sunday, 8,843 new deaths and 544,292 new cases were recorded worldwide.

Based on latest reports, the countries with the most new deaths were United States with 2,109 new deaths, followed by United Kingdom with 671 and Brazil with 551.

The United States is the worst-affected country with 397,600 deaths from 23,937,332 cases.

After the US, the hardest-hit countries are Brazil with 209,847 deaths from 8,488,099 cases, India with 152,419 deaths from 10,571,773 cases, Mexico with 140,704 deaths from 1,641,428 cases, and the United Kingdom with 89,261 deaths from 3,395,959 cases.

The country with the highest number of deaths compared to population is Belgium with 176 fatalities per 100,000 inhabitants, followed by Slovenia with 153, Italy 136, Czech Republic 135, and Bosnia-Herzegovina 134.

Europe has 660,429 deaths from 30,597,162 cases, Latin America and the Caribbean 550,383 deaths from 17,368,045 infections, and the United States and Canada 415,584 deaths from 24,644,685 cases.

Asia has reported 230,889 deaths from 14,645,234 cases, the Middle East 93,892 deaths from 4,413,604 cases, Africa 78,926 deaths from 3,264,339 cases, and Oceania 945 deaths from 31,523 cases.

Since the start of the pandemic, the number of tests conducted has greatly increased while testing and reporting techniques have improved, leading to a rise in reported cases.

However the number of diagnosed cases is only a part of the real total of infections as a significant number of less serious or asymptomatic cases always remain undetected.

As a result of corrections by national authorities or late publication of data, the figures updated over the past 24 hours may not correspond exactly to the previous day’s tallies.