By BOLAJI OGUNDELE, Abuja

The Presidential Task Force (PTF) on the COVID-19 pandemic has taken a swipe at states for underreporting cases so as to appear safer.

It asked states to take aggressive testing seriously for the nation to be able to measure the spread of the virus.

National Coordinator of the PTF, Dr Sani Aliyu, who gave the warning during Monday’s media briefing by the task force in Abuja, also charged Governors yet to set up the prescribed emergency isolation centres to start doing so before the numbers of infected persons start escalating.

Aliyu revealed that there were still many states that had not been coming out with what should be a realistic figure of the situation in the states, noting that fighting a war without details and figures was unwise.

According to him, “COVID-19 numbers is not an issue of competition between states, there’s no shame if a state comes out with positive numbers. In order to deal with an epidemic, we need to have transparency in numbers and that transparency is linked to the number of tests.

“If you do not know the extent of a problem, you will not be able to deal with it. So I’m appealing to state governments to please continue to support the state emergency operating centres, the State Ministry of Health and make sure that everybody who needs to be tested for COVID-19 in any state in the country has that opportunity of having the test done

“We are strongly encouraging more and more testing, as the DG NCDC said. We are far from exceeding our daily capacity for testing and we note that some states have actually sent less than 10 samples and I don’t believe there are no patients in these states that do not have symptoms of respiratory tract infection.

“As you know, we have expanded the indications for testing; not just people who have travelled abroad, or those who have had contacts with COVID-19, we are now encouraging all those who are now presenting to hospitals with respiratory tract infections to be tested for COVID-19 and we are appealing to states that are in this situation to make sure that the signs are put for testing.”

He also appealed to Governors to take the call for preparing emergency isolation centres ahead of cases explosion seriously, saying now would be the best time to get ready for such a likely eventuality. (The Nation)

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