- shelves schools resumption
Chairman of the South west Governors Forum and Ondo State Governor, Oluwarotimi Akeredolu, has condemned the massive influx of Almajiris into southwest states from the northern part of the country.
He said their influx into the region, coinciding with the spread of COVID-19 constitutes a great threat in many respects and calls for concern.
Akeredolu, who said government has set up an effective and already running system of containment to return the almajiris to their states of origin, also called on the people of the state to report cases of such wrong importation to inform the appropriate authorities to help curtail community transmission of COVID-19 in the state.
He spoke at the Government House Grounds, Alagbaka, Akure, during his weekly media briefing on the latest development of Covid-19 in the state.
He lamented that what the state is dealing with is more of imported cases of the deadly virus than community transmission, noting that illegal entrance into the state through the borders and constitutes the biggest threat the state is facing.
“If those manning our borders and residents along the borders had resisted the illegal entry of the individuals into the state, we probably would be having no new cases to report today.
“The case from Lagos, the woman from Abuja and the case from Ile Oluji would have been prevented if the individuals had obeyed the simple restriction order and if the borders were tight and impenetrable.” the Governor said.
On the speculated approval for the resumption of school dates, he said Government has not approved any date for resumption of academic activities in schools.
He said the spread of the pandemic is the biggest concern of Government and the protection of the pupils and students is topmost on his priority list.
While assuring that his administration will do everything possible to protect and promote the citizens in all ways and always, he said the capability of the health facilities in the state have been expanded to respond to emergencies and unforeseen eventualities of Covid–19 in the state.
“To achieve this, we have expanded the capacity of our Infectious Diseases Hospital (IDH) to 210 beds, a tenfold increase in capacity. We have directly provided 80 standard beds, 10 ICU beds, 100 Infrared thermometers, 3 ventilators two of which are ICU ventilators.
“The 80 beds will be used to equip our newly renovated isolation Centre in Ikare. We have also received 100 beds through the Coalition against COVID (CACOVID), which will allow for the expansion of our Centre in Akure and the equipping of the new Centre in Ondo town.”
