The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control announced that 317 new cases of the coronavirus and 1 death was recorded in Nigeria on Friday, 23rd July 2021.
This represents the highest number of daily cases recorded in over four months, taking the total tally to 170,623 and 2,131 casualties.
The number of daily covid-19 cases recorded in the country has continued to rise significantly in the month of July after a reported case of the highly dangerous delta variant of the coronavirus was detected in the country.
According to data tracked by Nairametrics from the NCDC, a total of 2,905 cases have been registered so far in the month of July, a significant increase compared to 1,100 and 1,394 recorded in the months of June and May 2021, respectively.
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With the rate on the chart moving upward, Nigeria may well be on its way into the third wave of the pandemic. Recall, that Nairametrics had earlier reported that Lagos State continues to bear the brunt of covid-19 spread.
However, other states have also recorded a significant increase in the number of new covid-19 cases. Notably, according to the NCDC, Lagos State topped the list of new cases on Friday with 172 cases, followed by Akwa Ibom (62), Oyo (33), Rivers (32) amongst others.
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As of the time of writing this article, the top 10 states with the highest number of cases are:
- Lagos (61,865)
- Abuja (19,944)
- Kaduna (9,127)
- Plateau (9,069)
- Rivers (7,477)
- Oyo (6,958)
- Edo (4,914)
- Ogun (4,729)
- Kano (4,007)
- Ondo (3,500)
What this means
This is a major setback for Nigeria, as it hopes to recover from the impact of the lockdown on its economy in 2020. A third wave would only mean, more stringent measures by the federal government, which could cause more harm to a struggling economy.