TheCable

Nigeria on Sunday recorded 125 cases of COVID-19. Here are five updates about the pandemic this Monday. 

Gordon Brown calls for airlift of 240 million COVID-19 vaccine doses to poor countries

Gordon Brown, former UK prime minister, has asked world leaders including the European Union, the United States and Canada to immediately airlift 240 million unused COVID vaccine doses to poor countries.

The adviser to the World Health Organisation (WHO) said this will save about 100,000 lives and prevent doses of the vaccine from being wasted when they expire.

“While vaccines have been pledged for the donation from all donors, we are not getting the vaccines into people’s arms and urgently need a month-to-month timetable to meet our interim targets and prevent further loss of lives,” Brown was quoted as saying.

“An immediate emergency airlift of 240 million vaccines this month from the global north to the global south should be followed by the transfer of a further 760 million vaccines transferred by February. If we do not use the stockpiled vaccines, many — perhaps 100 million — will go to waste when they pass their use-by dates and expire.”

Australian second-largest city to ease longest COVID-19 lockdowns 

Melbourne, capital of Victoria, has announced plans to lift its stay-at-home order this week.

The Australian city is one of the cities in the world that imposed the longest COVID-19 lockdowns to curb the spread of the infection.

“Today is a great day,” Daniel Andrews, Victoria Premier, said while announcing plans to lift the lockdown, adding that “today is a day when Victorians can be proud of what they have achieved”.

Nigeria confirms 125 infections

The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) says 125 COVID-19 infections were reported across the country on Sunday.

The agency in its update for October 17, 2021 said the infections were recorded in nine states and in the federal capital territory (FCT).

The states that reported the new cases are the FCT (45), Kaduna (34), Rivers (11), Lagos (10), Osun (10), Oyo (9), Jigawa (2), Edo (2), Kano (2), and Plateau (1).

The NCDC, on Sunday, said 59 patients were discharged after recovering from the infection.

However, 33 persons died of COVID-19-related complications on Sunday, raising the total number of fatalities to 2,837.

According to the agency, 45 cases reported in the FCT are for the 16th (25 cases) and 17th (18 cases) of October.

The NCDC also said five recoveries reported in the FCT on October 16.

Out of the 209,298 COVID-19 cases so far confirmed in Nigeria, 197,143 patients have recovered.

UK reports over 45,000 cases 

The United Kingdom (UK) on Sunday reported 45,140 new cases of COVID-19 — the highest single-day count since July.

The country also confirmed 57 deaths within 28 days of a positive test, raising the figure for the last seven days to 852 deaths.

New Zealand extends COVID lockdown in Auckland 

Auckland, New Zealand’s biggest city, will retain its lockdown for additional two weeks to tackle the highly-infectious delta variant, according to Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern.

“Any interim easing of restrictions … will not work towards our plan of minimising cases while we increase vaccinations,” Ardern said.