Nigeria has recorded 216 new cases of the novel coronavirus, the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control confirmed on Monday.
In a tweet via its official handle, the NCDC said 74 new cases were found in Lagos, 33 in Katsina, 19 in Oyo, and 17 in Kano.
Other states with new cases include Edo with 13, Zamfara 10, the trio of Ogun, Gombe and Borno with eight each, the duo of Bauchi and Kwara with seven each, the FCT with four, Kaduna and Enugu with three each and Rivers state with two new cases.
The health agency also reported that 1,644 cases have now been successfully treated and discharged, while 191 persons have died.
Earlier on Monday, the federal government chose not to further lift lockdown measures imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Instead, the government maintained restrictions such as the closure of schools, airports and religious centres for another two weeks.
“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,” Chairman of the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19, Boss Mustapha said in a briefing on Monday in Abuja.
“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 novel coronavirus has killed at least 316,333 people worldwide since the outbreak first emerged in China last December, according to a tally from official sources compiled by AFP at 1900 GMT Monday.
At least 4,759,650 cases of coronavirus have been registered in 196 countries and territories. Of these, at least 1,711,900 are now considered recovered.
The tallies, using data collected by AFP from national authorities and information from the World Health Organization (WHO), probably reflect only a fraction of the actual number of infections.
Many countries are testing only the most serious cases.
Over the past 24 hours, 2,719 deaths and 77,737 new cases have been recorded, with the most new fatalities reported in the United States with 667, Brazil with 485 and Britain with 160.
The US also has the highest number of deaths overall with 89,874 from 1,496,509 cases. At least 272,265 have been declared recovered.
Britain has the second highest toll with 34,796 deaths from 246,406 cases. It is followed by Italy with 32,007 deaths and 225,886 cases, France with 28,239 deaths and 179,938 infections and Spain with 27,709 fatalities and 231,606 cases.
The country with the highest death rate is Belgium, with 78 fatalities per 100,000 inhabitants, followed by Spain with 59, Italy 53, Britain 51 and France 43.
China — excluding Hong Kong and Macau — has to date declared 4,634 deaths and 82,954 cases. It has 78,238 recovered cases.
Europe has a total of 167,402 deaths from 1,908,708 cases, the United States and Canada have 95,806 deaths and 1,574,525 cases, Latin America and the Caribbean have 29,522 deaths and 526,414 cases, Asia has 12,449 deaths and 366,429 cases, the Middle East has 8,234 deaths and 288,554 cases, Africa has 2,793 deaths from 86,618 cases, and Oceania 127 deaths from 8,402 cases.
Corrections by national authorities or late publication of data mean the figures updated over the past 24 hours may not correspond exactly to the previous day’s tallies.
