COVID-19: Nigeria’s daily toll drops below 500 — first time in six days

For the first time in close to one week, Nigeria’s daily toll of COVID-19 infections dropped below 500.

The past week has seen the country confirm a record number of new cases in one day with the figure rising to as high as 745 on Thursday, making it the country’s highest daily toll ever.

The toll had decreased steadily over the weekend to 661 new cases on Saturday, but with a significant drop on Sunday to 436 new cases in 18 states and the federal capital territory (FCT).

The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) announced the new cases on Sunday night.

The last time Nigeria recorded less than 500 new cases daily was June 14, exactly one week ago.

Within the past one week as well, more than 4,500 samples have tested positive for the coronavirus, although 1,778 people have been discharged.

In the update for Sunday, while Lagos and Oyo states recorded 169 and 52 new cases, respectively, other states all had less than 40 new infections each.

Twelve patients were confirmed to have died of COVID-19 complications on Sunday, bringing the country’s current total to 518 fatalities.

Although the testing rate has almost tripled with over 113,000 samples tested, compared to less than 42,000 samples tested one month before, the number of new COVID-19 cases has also increased by more than 200 percent within the same period — between May 21 and June 21, the country has moved from 7,016 to more than 20,000 COVID-19 infections.

Meanwhile, out of Nigeria’s 20,244 confirmed COVID-19 cases, 12,847 are still active.

436 new cases of #COVID19Nigeria;

Lagos-169
Oyo-52
Plateau-31
Imo-29
Kaduna-28
Ogun-23
FCT-18
Enugu-18
Bauchi-17
Bayelsa-14
Rivers-8
Osun-6
Kano-6
Edo-5
Benue-5
Adamawa-3
Borno-2
Abia-1
Ekiti-1

20,244 confirmed
6,879 discharged
518 deaths pic.twitter.com/Y1GqUgSMwI

— NCDC (@NCDCgov) June 21, 2020