As part of our organization’s plan to help with incisive and up to date information with the spread of Corona Virus, we will be sharing real-time happenings as regards safety and precaution measures in South East about COVID-19 with the hashtag “#CoronavirusSE.”
In this first series, one of our reporters went on ground to take notice of how well Transport companies in Nnewi are ready for the impending virus that has since been declared “Pandemic” by the WHO.
Her report below :
Since the first case of the Corona Virus was identified in Nigeria, the government and NCDC have been working hand in hand to avoid the spread of the virus.
The most proactive step by the government was to ban international flights from 13 countries and close down all international airports, which many Nigerians said was a “late response”.
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The statistics today, 21 March 2020 show that Lagos has recorded 10 new COVID-19 cases, 16 in Lagos, 3 in Abuja, Ogun 2 and Ekiti 1.
So far, the South East(SE) has not recorded any cases within the region. This, therefore, begs the question, what measures are we putting in place to ensure we are safe or can identify a case early enough?
One of the easiest ways an infected person can get into the region is through road transport. The transportation of people and goods from the South East region to Lagos and Lagos to the South East is one of the busiest and maybe a porous channel for the virus to spread.
With this in mind, I led the team at Anaedoonline.com, we made our way to the popular and ever-busy Izuchukwu junction, which houses most of the East-West routes transport companies.
On getting there, it was business as usual, no one cared about COVID 19. Many of them reached out to us, touched and tried to pull us to join a bus to Lagos, “unu Ana eje Lagos”, are you going to Lagos?
The overzealous bus loader held on to one of us and we queried in Igbo Language, have you heard about CoronaVirus? He said NO. Our conversation went into a little orientation about what COVID-19 is all about and how one may be infected.
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We asked if they had a hand Sanitizer for themselves and the customers, he answered NO, again and walked away. We found out he was an attendant for Libra Motors.
We went on to GUO Motors, we must commend them for at least giving their staff a nylon glove which was in their pocket and keeping the place clean.
According to the manager, they have sanitizers for the floors and hands but when we looked around there was none in place, not even at the booking station, one would wonder how a Sanitizer is hidden.
It was also the same at Orizu Motors, where the manager also claimed they had a hand Sanitizer and a body scanner, which we saw but was obviously not in use as it looked dusty and old. We got into a conversation with a customer at Orizu Motors who denied using any hand Sanitizer and was not scanned as well.
More Shocking was the ANIDS Mass Transit, the alleged manager said he does not want to hear about CoronaVirus, that he is only here to call out his customers and fill up passengers for the journey to Lagos, they said the virus will not get to the eastern region. At UBI Motors, no precaution as well, the same for Eastern Mass Transit, Praise High Motors and many others there.
How really prepared are we if the virus were to find its way into the region?
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From our interactions, it was obvious many people have heard about it and they know their children’s schools are closing up, but many people don’t know how the virus infects one or the precautions available.
We enlightened some of them on what to do but talking to only about 10 people in a city that has over 200,000 citizens is not really a big number to go round. Many of them asked us for hand Sanitizers, masks or gloves which we didn’t have at the moment to give.
We would like to urge our government, representatives, senators to do more publicity about COVID-19 in their regions, states, zones and constituencies and also try to suppress the myth that “dirty no dey kill black man”. Also, possibly make available hand sanitizers(free of charge) for the people.
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