The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) released a statement on Thursday, July 2, 2020 blaming the Nigerian youth for rapidly spreading the coronavirus.
The NCDC Director-General, Dr Chikwe Ihekweazu made this statement on Thurday during the briefing of the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 in Abuja.
He said the youth of age ranging 20-40 were responsible for a high percentage of the virus spread while the older populace made up a majority of fatalities resulting from this carelessness. His statement read in part,
“As more people are infected across the world, you would have seen the numbers; it is increasingly obvious that transmission among younger people really, not children, but people aged between 20 and 40 as far as we know, are really driving the spread of this virus, but those that are bearing the brunt of it are people age 50 and above.
He also said that we all had a collective responsibility to curb the spread of the coronavirus and protecting the elderly especially as operations have gradually resumed. Dr Ihekweazu added that,
“Three out of five people who died from COVID-19 are 50 years and above; so we have to work harder, all of us collectively, to protect our elderly. We are on the verge of opening our airports, we have relaxed intercity travel.”
From the last official report given on July 2, the country was at 27,110 confirmed cases of COVID-19 cases with 10,801 discharged patients and 616 deaths.