The Lagos State Commissioner for Health, Prof. Akin Abayomi, has said the number of persons in the state that have died from COVID-19 related complications has increased to 506, the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) has reported.

Abayomi said this through his Facebook account @ProfAkinolaAbayomi on Sunday, while giving the state’s COVID-19 update for August 20.

He said that 11 persons died from COVID-19 related complications on the reported day, increasing the state’s fatality figure from the virus to 506.

Deaths recorded between August 1 to August 20, accounted for 122 out of the 506 total deaths recorded in the state, since the beginning of the pandemic.

The 11 deaths recorded on August 20 represented the second highest number of daily deaths recorded in the state, as the state had earlier recorded 13 deaths on August 10.

Abayomi disclosed that the state recorded 239 new COVID-19 infections, out of the 2,750 tests conducted on Friday, bringing the state’s total infections to 70,563.

The commissioner also said 4,387 persons with active COVID-19 cases, were receiving treatment under the state’s home-based care.

He added that 227 COVID-19 infected patients were being managed at the state’s isolation centres.

According to him, 60,716 of the infected persons have so far, recovered in communities, while 4,716 recovered in the state’s COVID-19 isolation centres.

The commissioner added that the total number of COVID-19 tests conducted in the state since the outbreak of the pandemic, stood at 662,826.

Earlier, Abayomi had said that the battle to defeat the pandemic was still on and Lagos was currently in a third wave of the pandemic.

He added that it was not certain if this would be the last wave, or whether there would be more waves or live with COVID-19 as a factor of life.

As we all know, Lagos State is currently running home-based care in the management of COVID-19 cases.

The state do not have enough bed spaces to isolate patients and this is not peculiar to Lagos State alone,

he said.

He noted that the state was currently under stress in the management of the pandemic.

Abayomi said there was a critical need to strike a balance between managing a public health crisis and COVID-proofing the economy, to ensure the state’s economy was active. (NAN)

Justin Nwosu

Justin Nwosu is the founder and publisher of Flavision. His core interest is in writing unbiased news about Nigeria in particular and Africa in general. He’s a strong adherent of investigative journalism, with a bent on exposing corruption, abuse of power and societal ills.