The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) announced on Friday, 30th July 2021 that 590 new cases of the covid-19 were confirmed and 8 covid-related deaths were recorded. This is according to the disclosure on the website of the NCDC.
According to the NCDC, Lagos State recorded the highest number of cases on Friday, with 308 new cases of the disease, accounting for 52.2% of the total cases recorded. Akwa Ibom followed with 54 new cases, Katsina (40), Oyo (39), and Rivers (26).
The new cases recorded takes the total tally, from inception to 173,411 cases and 2,149 deaths, indicating a mortality rate of 12.4 per 1,000 infected people. As of the time of writing this article a total of 2.44 million people have tested for the disease.
A cursory look at the historical data shows that the last time Nigeria recorded new daily covid-19 cases greater than 590 was on the 4th of March 2021, when 709 cases were confirmed. It is worth noting that so far in the month of July, a total of 5,693 cases have been recorded, compared to 1,100 cases recorded in the previous month.
Compared to the month of May where a total of 1,394 cases were recorded, we can very well confirm that Nigeria is witnessing the third wave of the pandemic, and would need to contain the spread, especially with the new variant of the disease now at large.
Why this matters
The issue of covid-19 has grown to a major subject matter in the world since its outbreak in 2019, as it has crippled many world economies and forced restrictions on movements in many countries. Nigeria will need to contain the spread as fast as possible, especially considering most of its population have not been vaccinated against the disease.
