The government of Edo State announced on Tuesday that it would commence the enforcement of its no COVID-19 vaccination card, no entry into all state government-owned facilities as from today, Wednesday.
According to the state government, the measure is aimed at curbing the spread of the coronavirus pandemic in the state.
The Permanent Secretary of the State’s Ministry of Health, Osamwonyi Irowa, who disclosed this at the daily press briefing on the virus on Tuesday, however, said that anybody who wanted access into any state government offices, must have his or her card to show the enforcers.
He said, “If you have to enter the state secretariat you must have your vaccination card, we are going to implement this in all the key areas to ensure that we don’t have persons being infected because the other person is being difficult.
“Those that cannot provide their COVID-19 vaccination card may have to excuse us and be working from home pending when a decision will be reached. As a state, we are doing everything possible to make sure people don’t get infected.
“We are appealing to our people to get vaccinated because that is the most suitable way of preventing the severity of the disease when you have it and also avoiding death. The enforcement team will commence work tomorrow (today)as a way to help us reduce the number of cases and deaths we are recording daily.”
The head of the state’s COVID-19 regulation enforcement team, Yusuf Haruna, said the state government had trained 20 special teams that would be spread across the state to commence the enforcement.
He said, “As we all know, the government has the responsibility to protect the lives and properties of its citizens. In view of this, we have trained 20 special teams that will be spread across the 18 Local Government Areas of the state.
“They will commence this enforcement from the 15th of September, 2021. What we expect our people to do is that while going to work they should go with their vaccination cards. The government is not forcing anybody but the government has the responsibility to tell you not to spread the virus.
“What we are going to do tomorrow is to grant those who have the authentic vaccination card access to their working places and those without can go back and work from home and the government will know how to deal with all of that.”
Also, on Tuesday, Nigeria recorded 519 additional cases of the virus, which has pushed the total number of infections so far to 200,057.
The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) gave the statistics on its Facebook page on Tuesday night, adding that 18 deaths were also recorded, bringing the total death toll to 2,637.
