Ekiti state government has said all worship centres in the state are to remain closed to curb the spread of coronavirus.
Commissioner for Health, Dr Mojisola Yaya-Kolade, announced this at a COVID- 19 press briefing in Ado Ekiti on Wednesday.
She added that government would on Thursday commence testing at its molecular laboratory to boost the state’s testing capacity.
The commissioner stated;
We do not want to open and later say we want to close our worship centres. We have met with the religious leaders and what we said was that churches and mosques should remain closed. We deliberated and the decision to reopen will only be made when we see that we have enough scientific evidence to show that it is safe to reopen.
She stated;
The state is happy that there is no community spread in Ekiti, there is even a decline and we have to keep this tempo going. A lot of things happen in churches like handshaking, embracing, clustering and taking of Holy Communion together. All these must be resolved before we can say we want to open our churches.
The commissioner noted that all the patients at the isolation centre were in stable condition, adding that those on oxygen supplementation had been taken off.
Yaya-Kolade expressed that;
We will begin pilot testing tomorrow (Thursday) at the molecular laboratory that we established. Everything is set for the commencement of the large scale testing.
Also speaking, the Coordinator of the State COVID-19 Task Force, Prof. Bolaji Aluko, stated that the security situation was under control, with no major breaches at the borders.
He said;
The guidelines for bringing of corpses to Ekiti still remain the same. Whoever wants to hold any burial must get a death certificate to obtain clearance at the Ministry of Health. The use of masks is still very imperative at this point because it will help in curtailing spread while government is receiving palliatives from major partners and distributing it to residents.
As at Thursday morning, Ekiti state has 30 confirmed cases, 10 active ones, 18 discharged and 2 casualties.
