1,940 new cases of COVID-19 amidst Omicron spread. in Nigeria
Nigeria recorded 1,940 new cases of COVID-19 in 18 States and the FCT on Thursday.
The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), made this known on Friday morning.
Nigeria on Wednesday recorded 4,000.
The NCDC said no deaths were reported for Thursday.
The centre said Lagos reported 845, while the FCT recorded 734 cases.
For the FCT, The centre said, the number include backlog of cases for Wednesday.
Others are Oyo-120, Rivers-69, Delta-30, Kaduna-29, Edo-21, Plateau-20, Gombe-14, Anambra-11, Enugu-11, Osun-10, Ekiti-8, Kano-5, Bayelsa-4, Ogun-4, Katsina-3, Bauchi-1, Jigawa-1.
These latest figures, the centre said, brings the total number of confirmed cases to 233,353 with 212,040 discharged and 2,991 COVID-related deaths.
The centre said nine people have died since the detection of the Omicron variant in the country after testing positive for COVID-19.
The Omicron variant comes amid a race to get booster jabs into arms as quickly as possible, with an early study by Imperial College London having suggested that a third vaccine dose could offer around 85 per cent protection against severe illness with Omicron.
The NCDC said 3,751,696 people have been tested since the virus was announced on Feb. 27, 2020.
Two preliminary studies published on Wednesday by Imperial and the University of Edinburgh, found that those infected with the Omicron variant were 40 to 70 per cent less likely to be admitted to hospital than with Delta.
Experts said it remains unclear whether Omicron is innately less virulent than its predecessors or merely appears so because of the high levels of immunity in the population. Health officials warned that a reduction in severity could be cancelled out by the “alarming” rate at which Omicron is spreading.
