Breaking: Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 extends gradual easing of lockdown by two weeks

The Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 has announced the extension of the current phase of ease of the lockdown for another 2 weeks, effective from Monday 18th May to 1st June, 2020.

Chairman of the task force and Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Boss Mustapha, who announced this during the daily briefing of the task force team in Abuja today May 18, said the time is not ripe for the Federal government to relax its containment protocols against the Covid-19 pandemic.

In his words

”The reality is that in spite of the modest progress made, Nigeria is not yet ready for full opening of the economy and tough decisions have to be taken for the good of the greater majority. Any relaxation will only portend grave danger for our populace.?

Advisedly, the current phase of eased restriction will be maintained for another two weeks during which stricter enforcement and persuasion measures will be pursued.

The two weeks extension of phase one of the eased restriction is also to enable other segments of the econmy to prepare adequately for compliance with the guidelines preparatory to opening in the coming weeks.

For the presidential task force, we share your pains but our future is in the hands of every Nigerians and future decisions will depend greatly on our compliance.

Based on the recommendations of the Presidential task force, Mr President has approved the following

1.The measures, exemptions, advisories as scopes of entities allowed to open under phase one of the ease lockdwon shall be maintained across the Federation for anothe rtwo weeks effective from Today 18th May until the 1st of June 2020.

2. Intensify efforts to tame, communicate, trace, identify and manage cases.

3. Elevating the level of community ownership of non-pharmaceutical interventions.

4.Mainatin the existing lockdon in Kano for another two weeks.

5. Imposition of precision lockdown in states or metropolitan and high burdened local governments that are reporting a rapidly increasing number of cases when the need arises. This will be complimented with the provisions of palliatives and continued re-evaluation of the impact of the interventions. and

6. Aggressive scale-up of efforts to ensure that communities are informed, engaged, and participating in the response with enhanced public awareness in high risk areas” he said