COVID-19: Osun new cases of coronavirus

NICHOLAS IBENU JR., LAGOS

Rafiu Isamotu, commissioner for health, broke the news on Thursday.

He said all the 127 Ivory Coast returnees had been tested and 18 of them had returned positive.

The Nigerian Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) had on Wednesday announced that nine of the returnees who came into the country by land tested positive for the disease.

As a means of containing the spread of the disease, Gboyega Oyetola, the governor, had ordered shut the borders with neighbouring states and imposed a lockdown.

He also signed the Diseases (Emergency Prevention) Regulations, law 2020.

Oyetola said the law is aimed at preventing and containig the spread of Covid- 19 anywhere within Osun.

Following the signing of the law, anybody who violates the order will be sentenced to six-month imprisonment or an option of fine upon conviction

Under the Law, transmission or dissemination of false information regarding Covid-19 is also an offence and it attracts the same punishment.

“The governor may direct the removal of a Potentially Infectious Person, where such a person fails or refuses to go to a place specified for screening and assessment. The governor may direct a Potentially Infectious Person within a Local Area, to go into isolation for an initial period of 14 days,” parts of the regulations read.

Signing the regulations, the governor said, “It has become imperative to go beyond making suggestions and giving directives in order to stem the tide of the spread of Covid-19, save lives, reduce ill health and ensures that the economy in which the people of the Osun State operate does not become deteriorated and stretched. I make the following Regulations for the good order, safety, security and public health in the State of Osun.”