*Director-General of the NCDC, Dr. Ihekweazu is the man whose agency is leading Nigeria in the fight against COVID-19
The Director-General of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), Dr Chikwe Ihekweazu has said that the fact that some Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic patients in the country have been seen in viral social media videos playing and dancing in isolation centres does not mean they are not ill. He made the shocking clarification on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily earlier today.
He explained that COVID-19 remains an infectious disease, which may not necessarily weaken infected persons the way other diseases do. The DG said, “I think people really need to understand why people are being put in these centres. Normally, you only go into a hospital when you are ill, get a diagnosis, and then you are sometimes admitted if you are very ill.
“But in this case, following the experience from other countries, we made a decision as a country to also put people in isolation centres not just because they are ill on their own but in order to stop them from transmitting this virus to others. When I travelled to China in late February or early March, things were put in place for these people (in quarantine), so they could exercise and dance because it is not easy to be somewhere, in isolation for three to four weeks when you are not physically ill.
“So, these are things we have to use to reassess our decisions. It is very difficult to make decisions based on one viral video. One Whatsapp video does not represent the experience of people across the country. It is very important that as leaders we are not pushed down a decision path because one video happened to go viral. Many people in these centres around the country are complying.”
