By Chinenye Festus:-
The Lagos State Governor, Mr Babajide Sanwo-Olu disclosed that places of worship in the state will be reopened from August 7. He said this during a briefing on COVID-19 at the State House in Marina.
Sanwo-Olu said religious leaders must make available hand sanitisers, thermometer guns, adding that the state government will ensure that social distancing is maintained.
“Places of worship in Lagos will now be opened from Friday, August 7 for our Muslim worshippers and on Sunday, August 9 for our Christian worshippers.
“We will only be allowing 50 per cent of their capacity at either the church or the mosque. Churches that have Saturday worship day will also be allowed to start holding their Saturday worship.
“We must reiterate that places of worship are only permitted to have their regular once a week service on designated days.”
On the level of COVID-19 cases in the state, Governor Sanwo-Olu announced that the past two weeks witnessed a decline in fresh infections.
While noting that the state government successfully tested 9,000 samples in the week ending July 26, the governor explained the figures represented 50 per cent increase in the 6,000 tested samples in the preceding week.
According to him, more testing of suspected COVID-19 cases has been made possible with the creation of additional laboratories in the state.
He is however optimistic that the state is winning the battle against the dreaded virus owing to the increase in the number of tested samples.
“We must, however, mention that we have seen a gradual decrease in the positivity rate in Lagos State over the last two weeks which combines with our increase in the testing numbers.
“We will continue to fine-tune our strategy and our efforts to build on our successes and close all existing gaps if any.”
Meanwhile, in a fresh statistics released by the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) on Friday night, Lagos recorded 78 fresh COVID-19 cases trailing the FCT with 93 cases.
For the avoidance of doubt, there will be Friday worship for our Muslim followers and Sunday worship for our Christian followers,” he said.