COVID-19 Pandemic Exhausts Lagos’ Ventilator Stock As Governor Cries Out To Buhari

Lagos State says it needs fresh supplies of ventilators, a respiratory apparatus needed by ailing patients especially in the treatment of Covid 19.

State governor, Babajide Sanwo Olu, on Thursday, met with President Muhammadu Buhari at the presidential villa, where he briefed him on this new challenges bedeviling the state in terms of the resurgence of Covid-19.
Sanwo-Olu gave indications that oxygen equipped ventilators necessary to cater for critical cases of the virus was in short supply, even though the government is currently taking steps to build and equip more isolation centres.

While interacting with State House correspondents, after the meeting with Mr President, the Governor alluded that the infectious rate of the virus was in the threshold of 25-30percent in Lagos State alone.

Recall that when the virus broke out in Nigeria and a lockdown was later imposed by the Federal Government, Lagos State was one of first few states to assume control of the virus, prompting the government to release some billions to cushion the impact.

Speaking on COVID-19, the Governor said, ” it’s actually a very serious case. We’ve all said it, we are in the second wave and incidentally, the second wave seems to be a bit more infectious than the first one, I mean the rate of infection and the number of people that we have seen. We still remain the epicenter, so what we’ve done is we never stopped building capacity.

“So two things that we are doing now is communication and we are taking it to the grassroots to let people know that they need to take full responsibility and know that even for their loved ones they need to be real with themselves and know that COVID-19 is real, is with us and is not just something playing in their heads.

“We’ve seen, unfortunately, the fatality rate around the country, even in Lagos. One of the things we’ve realised is that a lot more people require oxygen attention, they need additional breathing aid, so we have started building what we call oxygen tent, oxygen facilities, we are building about ten of such facilities, we’ve commissioned about four or five of them and we are also building proper oxygen plants, additional to oxygen plants in the state so that we can meet the respiratory requirements.

“We understand more than where we were ten to eight months ago, so we know what the treatment should be so we are better positioned for that. We are Also doing a lot more testing in Lagos than we were doing five to six months ago: we are doing almost 3,000/2,500 tests everyday, so we are watching the rate of positivity that we have, which is also high, it has moved from the usual ten to twelve percent and we are now seeing positivity rate of about 25 and sometimes 30%. That is actually very disturbing.

“So we are positioning ourselves to be able to continue to make it efficient for our citizens. Yes, they’ll get it, but once they come in, sometimes it could be home care, you will get well at the end of the day. But the ones that are severe, because we have categorised the cases as mild, moderate and severe, some serious mild and severe cases that will need additional care, have to come to our facilities. These are some of the things that we’ve had the facilities ready for.

“I think the major thing is for our citizens to take responsibility and to know and appreciate that COVID-19 is real and they need to obey all the protocols that have been set out for them to obey”, the governor said.