As many as 6,500 passengers from outside Nigeria are believed to have avoided or evaded compliance with measures designed to protect the community from the fourth wave of COVID-19 otherwise known as Omicron variant, the Lagos State Government said yesterday.
But Health Commissioner Akin Abayomi said government had started communicating with the affected people.
Abayomi, in a statement in Lagos, said government was “determined to halt the alarming trend of defaulters whose actions were responsible for previous waves of the pandemic in Lagos State.”
He said accordingly, “we have commenced communicating with 6,500 inbound passengers who are suspected of not being compliant with our guidelines established to protect the community, lives and our economy.
“Short message service (SMS) have been dispatched to suspected defaulters in the month of December. A dedicated customer care line and personnel was also deployed to call these suspected defaulters.
”We have also created a dedicated email address to reach defaulters. Subsequently, about 1,000 emails and over 2,000 calls have been received from suspected defaulting passengers.
“To date, 432 suspected defaulters have been cleared after investigation, and 81 confirmed defaulters have been sanctioned and fined by the mobile courts, and the process continues until we clear the backlog.”
He said the fourth wave of COVID-19 “started as expected around the beginning of December, coinciding with the influx of inbound travelers into Lagos, some of whom we have established were carrying the Omicron variant.
“There was a significant increase in case positivity from 1% on the 1st of December to 29% as at 21st of December 2021 as the highly infectious variant started spreading quickly in community with a steep unrelenting upward projection.
“Lagos State has recognised a typical pattern that triggered all our preceding three waves. This pattern is related to three things:
*Seasons when there is increased movement of inbound travelers into Lagos such as Christmas and summer vacation.
*Ongoing waves in Europe, America and South Africa where most of travelers into Lagos emanate from,
*Non-compliance with Lagos State and Federal COVID guidelines.
“In particular, Lagos State has noticed that failure of airline passengers to observe the mandatory post arrival testing and isolation always results in importation of variants which then start spreading in community and was the trigger of all preceding three waves to date.”
Abayomi warned that “disregarding the testing and isolation guidelines inevitably introduces new variants of COVID-19 and constitute a state and national public health and security threat which will sabotage all efforts to mitigate and reduce the impact of the fourth wave on citizens and the economy of the state and country.”
Government, he said, has “started submitting the names of those that do not respond to the SMS or Emails to the Presidential Steering Committee for the deactivation of their passports for a period of one year.”
He advised residents, particularly inbound passengers coming into Lagos and Nigeria, to adhere strictly to COVID-19 protocols and guidelines including isolation, testing and vaccination guidelines to support the government in sustaining the flattening of the fourth wave of infection in the state.
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