TheCable

President Muhammadu Buhari says Nigeria must do all it can to avoid a second wave of coronavirus infections.

In a tweet via his official Twitter account on Thursday, the president said the country’s economy is too fragile to bear another round of lockdown.

“Looking at the trends in other countries, we must do all we can to avert a second wave of COVID-19 in Nigeria. We must make sure that our cases, which have gone down, do not rise again. Our economy is too fragile to bear another round of lockdown,” he wrote.

Looking at the trends in the other countries, we must do all we can to avert a second wave of Covid-19 in Nigeria. We must make sure that our cases, which have gone down, do not rise again. Our economy is too fragile to bear another round of lockdown.

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— Muhammadu Buhari (@MBuhari) October 29, 2020

In March, Buhari imposed a total lockdown on some states including Lagos, Ogun and Abuja to control the spread of the coronavirus.

As a result of the restrictions and reduced economic activity, Nigeria’s gross domestic product (GDP) contracted by 6.1 percent in the second quarter of 2020.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) projects that Nigeria’s economy will contract by 4.3 percent in 2020 in real terms; recording its second recession in five years.

Nigeria’s  COVID-19 cases have been on downward trend and states have now begun to reopen fully.

According to the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), the country has recorded a total of 62, 371 confirmed cases, 58,095 recoveries and 1,139 deaths.

Lagos accounts for close to half of the country’s total recoveries with 20,145 patients discharged in the state, although it also has the highest number of cases with 21,017 infections.

Nigeria recorded its index case of COVID-19 on February 27, 2020.