163 new COVID-19 cases reported in Rivers as 14 die nationwide

Rivers state has reported 163 new cases of the novel coronavirus, even as 14 more persons were confirmed dead across the country.

Rivers’ tally made it the second most-prolific virus state on Wednesday, just behind Lagos state, the country’s epicentre of the global pandemic.

In an early-morning tweet on Thursday, the Nigeria Centre of Disease Control said 22 states across the country reported a total of new 1,386 cases on Wednesday.

To date, Nigeria has recorded 114,691 cases of the virus, with 92,336 cases discharged and 1478 deaths.

The breakdown of the virus distribution by States showed that Lagos recorded 476 new cases ahead of Rivers’ 163.

Other regions with new cases include the FCT (116), Kaduna (114), Oyo (68), Plateau (62), Ogun (56), Imo (55), Osun (55), Edo (51), Anambra (50), Kwara (44), Kano (17), Ebonyi (14), Cross River (10), Delta (10), Jigawa (8), Bayelsa (6), Ekiti (6), Borno (2), Taraba (2), and Zamfara (1).

Meanwhile, the NCDC noted that its Wednesday discharges “includes 626 community recoveries in Lagos State managed in line with guidelines.”

Global Update

The novel coronavirus has killed at least 2,058,226 people since the outbreak emerged in China in December 2019, according to an AFP tally from official sources at 1100 GMT on Wednesday.

More than 96,144,670 cases of coronavirus have been registered.

These figures are based on daily tolls provided by health authorities in each country and exclude later re-evaluations by statistical organisations as has happened in Russia, Spain and Britain.

Over Tuesday, 16,132 new deaths and 635,378 new cases were recorded worldwide.

Based on latest reports, the countries with the most new deaths were United States with 2,482, followed by United Kingdom with 1,610 and Mexico with 1,584.

The United States is the worst-affected country with 401,777 deaths from 24,254,284 cases.

After the US, the hardest-hit countries are Brazil with 211,491 deaths from 8,573,864 cases, India with 152,718 from 10,595,660 cases, Mexico with 142,832 from 1,668,396 cases, and the United Kingdom with 91,470  from 3,466,849.

The country with the highest number of deaths compared to population is Belgium with 177 fatalities per 100,000 inhabitants, followed by Slovenia with 155, Czech Republic 138 and Italy 138.

Europe overall has 673,461 deaths from 31,075,580 cases, Latin America and the Caribbean 556,362 deaths from 17,570,526 infections, and the United States and Canada 420,008 deaths from 24,972,772 cases.

Asia has reported 232,321 deaths from 14,727,049 cases, the Middle East 94,297 deaths from 4,457,288 cases, Africa 80,832 deaths from 3,309,904 cases, and Oceania 945 deaths from 31,560 cases.

Since the start of the pandemic, the number of tests conducted has greatly increased while testing and reporting techniques have improved, leading to a rise in reported cases.

However the number of diagnosed cases is only a part of the real total of infections as a significant number of less serious or asymptomatic cases always remain undetected.

As a result of corrections by national authorities or late publication of data, the figures updated over the past 24 hours may not correspond exactly to the previous day’s tallies.