12th February, 2021
By Abankula
Nigeria announced fresh eight COVID-19 deaths on Thursday, with Lagos accounting for five of them.
This took the death toll in Nigeria’s most hit state to 357 and the nation’s to 1710.
The other three deaths came from Oyo, Rivers and Gombe.
According to NCDC data, daily cases of COVID-19 went southwards again on Thursday, falling to 938 from the 1131 recorded Wednesday.
The national total of confirmed cases is now 143,516, after 1,398,630 samples tested.
Recoveries are 118,012 till date. On Thursday, another 1,065 were cleared.
According to the NCDC data, Thursday marked the fourth time this month that the daily cases will fall below 1,000.
Nigeria recorded 676 cases on 1 February.
It also recorded 506 cases, the lowest in recent time on 7 February.
On 8 February, it recorded 643 cases. In contrast, on 5 February, 1624 cases were recorded.
On 6 February, 1588 cases were also recorded.
There was no explanation by the NCDC on Thursday on why the daily COVID-19 cases are not following the pattern generally seen in other countries.
In those countries, daily infection rates go up and then later reach a plateau.
The Nigerian pattern has been simply unpredictable.
On Thursday, Lagos, FCT Abuja and Plateau, which are the three grim leaders, also led in cases reported.
Except for Plateau, that had more cases on Thursday than on Wednesday, Lagos and Abuja recorded fewer cases.
While on Wednesday, Lagos had 297 cases, the figure fell to 236 on Thursday.
The FCT Abuja also recorded fewer cases, from 194 to 123.
Kaduna, Oyo and Rivers, which are 4th, 5th and 6th on the COVID-19 leaderboard, also logged lower cases.
Kaduna fell from 83 to 43 in daily cases, Oyo from 58 to 50.
Rivers was even more remarkable, from 42 to 10.
Here is a breakdown of the 938 from 19 states and FCT Abuja:
Lagos-236
FCT-123
Plateau-92
Benue-63
Katsina-53
Oyo-50
Osun-45
Kaduna-43
Edo-33
Ogun-31
Ebonyi-31
Akwa Ibom-30
Kano-26
Gombe-18
Bauchi-16
Delta-12
Imo-11
Cross River-10
Rivers-10
Niger-5
143,516 confirmed
118,012 discharged
1,710 deaths