“Have we ever put up our guard in Nigeria before? We never really had our guard up in the first place! We were not wearing face masks and observing other stipulated COVID-19 safety guidelines.

“This is one of the problems we have been talking about. People don’t believe in all those measures. They were not wearing face masks, and were still going to gatherings and doing all sorts of things that potentially exposed them to the virus.

“If you go to several public places and markets, you can hardly find people wearing face masks. And when they are wearing one, they are wearing them wrongly — under their chin and not over their mouth and nose.

“Even at conferences, you will see the so-called educated people hanging face masks under their shine and talking. They will be speaking with a microphone and spitting COVID-19 virus on it.

“We are lucky now, as the infection seems to be going down. But then, I expect another wave to come soon,” the virologist said.

Shedding more light on the likelihood of having a third wave sweep through a country that is still under the grip of a second wave, Tomori noted that the second wave could have been due to the variance that came out from the initial transmission, adding, “If we are still having transmission going on, it means that one of these days, another variance will come out. And then, we would have our third wave.”

Tomori said based on a recent survey carried out by the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, very few people had developed antibodies to the virus, warning that the implication is that the virus is still spreading.

“Which means that since the virus is still going around, there are enough people for it to infect in the future,” he warned.

“There was a report by the NCDC on a survey of antibodies that was carried out in Nigeria. They even got as low as nine per cent in one of the states.

“This means that if they tested 100 in that state, only nine of them were positive. Which means that 91 others that don’t have antibodies can still be infected.

“Even Lagos that had a large number with so many cases, only about 23 per cent had antibodies, which means there are about 75 per cent that have not been infected.

“This means that if the third wave comes, it would be bigger than this second wave. First wave was small. For the second wave, within a space of 91 days, we had almost three times the number of cases we had over a period of 200 days. From February 27 to about the end of November, we had about 60,000 cases.

“But from early December to now, we already have 90,000 cases in a short space of 90 days, compared to 200 days that gave us 60,000.

“So, if the third wave comes and is a very virulent one, then, of course, we are going to have a taller wave. So, we shouldn’t let down our guards at all,” Tomori advised.

According to the result of ‘Household Seroprevalence Survey’ carried out in conjunction with the Nigerian Institute of Medical Research and published on the NCDC website on February 22, blood samples were collected from over 10,000 individuals residing in a representative sample of households in four states.

The survey, conducted between September and October 2020, in Lagos, Enugu, Nasarawa and Gombe States, revealed that the prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies was 23% in Lagos and Enugu States; 19 per cent in Nasarawa State, and 9 per cent in Gombe State.

“This means that as many as one in five individuals in Lagos, Enugu and Nasarawa State would have ever been infected with SARS-CoV-2.

“In Gombe, the proportion is about one in 10. These rates of infection are higher than those reported through the national surveillance system and reveal that the spread of infection in the states surveyed is wider than is obvious from surveillance activities.

“This is not surprising for COVID-19, given that a majority of those infected do not have any symptoms,” the survey stated.

Recall that the chairman Presidential Task Force on COVID-19, Boss Mustapha, on Tuesday during the joint national briefing in Abuja, appealed to Nigerians to adhere strictly to precautionary measures against COVID-19 transmission to prevent a third wave of the pandemic.

He warned that the virus is very much around and that should there be a third wave, facilities and personnel to manage patients in times might be inadequate.

Mustapha, who is the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, however, assured that efforts are already being made to ensure the situation is well managed should the country experience a resurgence of the virus.

source: Punch