NAME: NWAJINKA IFUNANYA
MATRIC NO: 19/SMS09/048
COLLEGE: SMS(IRD)
GST 122: WRITE A REPORT ON THE CORONA VIRUS DISEASE AND THE EFFECTS OF THE LOCKDOWN  ON NIGERIA
                                       CORONA VIRUS PANDEMIC
 Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is an infectious disease caused by a newly discovered coronavirus. The Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) that started out as an epidemic in Wuhan, China in December 2019 and ended up as a pandemic (affecting the whole world) has thrown the whole world into a war-like situation. Scores of thousands of deaths have been recorded cumulatively for all countries across the world. Health systems in most countries are overwhelmed by the seriously sick patients in hospitals, many of whom are on ventilators and nursed in intensive care units . Global and local economies stand at their worst in decades; the world economy is now declared to be in recession by the World Bank/IMF, and could eventually lead to the deepest depression in 1929.
 Most people infected with the COVID-19 virus will experience mild to moderate respiratory illness and recover without requiring special treatment.  Older people, and those with underlying medical problems like cardiovascular disease, diabetes, chronic respiratory disease, and cancer are more likely to develop serious illness. The best way to prevent and slow down transmission is be well informed about the COVID-19 virus, the disease it causes and how it spreads. Protect yourself and others from infection by washing your hands or using an alcohol based rub frequently and not touching your face. The COVID-19 virus spreads primarily through droplets of saliva or discharge from the nose when an infected person coughs or sneezes, so it’s important that you also practice respiratory etiquette (for example, by coughing into a flexed elbow).
The first case of COVID-19 in Nigeria was confirmed on the 27 February 2020 in Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial capital with a population of 21 million. The index case arrived from Milan, Italy, then the fourth country with high incidence (371 cases), and came into the country via Lagos Airport on 25 February 2020 where nothing serious was on ground to check or track new entrants into the country from suspected places with acute infections. The fellow, who works with the multibillion dollars multinational, Lafarge Cement Company, went for a meeting at the company’s factory at Ewekoro, Ogun state, an adjoining state to Lagos. It was at the Lafarge’s medical centre in Ewekoro that the case was flagged when he presented sick, and was sent for testing and confirmed COVID-19. More cases were thereafter discovered, a number of them being high ranking politicians and senior government officials. Among these were President Buhari’s Chief of Staff, Abba Kyari; the Governors of Bauchi, Kaduna and Oyo States; the nation’s Comptroller General and Head of Immigration; Deputy Speaker of Edo State House of Assembly and son of former Vice President Atiku Abubakar (the main opposition party’s presidential candidate at the 2019 elections). And the COVID-19 cases had moved  from less than 10 in two weeks to over 500 confirmed cases now.
The corona virus pandemic has further effected the economy of nigeria and its citizens as schools, churches, resturants, and business organizations has been ordered to shut down as the country moved into a lockdown as a means to prevent the spread of the disease.  However, locking people down at home in the Nigerian context is like asking people to go hungry for the duration of the lockdown. More than 60 per cent of Nigerians survive on daily pay from menial jobs and petty trading. A lockdown means their means of daily livelihood have been locked down. The plight of private sector employees is no better. Many private employers have maintained a ‘no salary during lockdown’ stance, or at best a 50 per cent pay cut. Some have even completely laid the workers off.  Pangs of hunger has lead to widespread anger. Protests in different forms are already being seen within the communities. People are protesting against a lockdown without palliatives, against the high-handedness of law enforcement agents, and even rejecting all manner of palliatives that smack of insult to their intelligence, such as packs of food that are not enough to feed a family of six in 2 weeks being distributed to be shared among 60-80 families in a cluster. This protest mood that is brewing has the potential to transform into a movement that would pose a serious challenge to the lockdown if the hunger question is not resolved. It could also get a lot worse, as we are beginning to see in some places in Lagos and Ogun States where a layer of lumpen youth, pushed to extreme hunger by the lockdown, go on mass looting of shops and houses, carting away ordinary people’s food and belongings. 
While the poor masses, a majority of whom are informal workers, are asked to stay off their businesses and sit at home, exceptions are proudly being granted to members of the ruling class and the billionaire class. In Ogun State, for example, Dangote trucks have been exempted from the lockdown order by the state government. These trucks, by the way, are mostly conveying non-essential products like cement. So much for lockdowns and Coronavirus prevention. Dangote is the richest man in Africa and thus the message is clear; one law for the rich and another for the poor.