The federal government and its states dashing into declaring 14-day lockdowns or partial lockdowns, depending on the spate of Covid-19 infection and transmission, might just be acting a tad too late.
Facts and figures are changing, and old bits of information Nigeria is acting on, especially the virus incubation period the lockdowns target, are now useless, according to Worldometer.
Covid-19 can lie dormant in infected persons way beyond the NCDC-recommended two to14 days—for up to 24 days in some patients—before showing up in wheezing, coughing, gasping, and fever.
This is obvious in Nigeria where most of about 200 people confirmed positive now are asymptomatic even after many have spent up to two weeks in quarantine, and still remain as healthy as they came.
Below are the latest findings Worldometer publishes
# 2-14 days represents the current official estimated range for the novel coronavirus COVID-19.
# However, a case with an incubation period of 27 days has been reported by Hubei Province local government on Feb. 22 .
# In addition, a case with an incubation period of 19 days was observed in a JAMA study of 5 cases published on Feb. 21.
# An outlier of a 24 days incubation period had been for the first time observed in a Feb. 9 study.[11] WHO said at the time that this could actually reflect a second exposure rather than a long incubation period, and that it wasn’t going to change its recommendations.
#Period can vary greatly among patients.
# Mean incubation period observed:
3.0 days (0 – 24 days range, study based on 1,324 cases)
5.2 days (4.1 – 7.0 days range, based on 425 cases).
# Mean incubation period observed in travelers from Wuhan:
6.4 days (range from 2.1 to 11.1 days).