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Oyo to commission 100 tailors for 1m face masks
By Bright Ilero
The head of Oyo state COVID-19 task force, and the state Governor, Seyi Makinde has declared that wearing of face masks to public places in the state will now be made compulsory, this he said was part of the renewed measures to contain further spread of the pandemic in Oyo state.
Governor Makinde said part of the strategies at achieving this goal was the plan by the State Government to produce an initial one million cloth face masks to kick start the mask in public places.
To this end, he hinted that 100 tailors will be commissioned by Monday, the 20th of April, 2020 to make 10,000 face masks each.
Makinde at a Press briefing giving an update on the war against corona virus pandemic said “We are collaborating with experts who have already designed these face masks to train the tailors on how to make them”.
“As I stated at an earlier interview, one of the measures we considered to prevent, contain and control the spread of COVID-19 in Oyo State is the compulsory use of face masks in public. Today, we reached a decision to implement this measure”.
Giving an update on the number of active cases of the virus in Oyo state, Makinde said “during the COVID-19 Task Force meeting today, we were informed that two more tests came back positive. So, we have four new cases from the tests being conducted at Adamasingba Stadium. This brings the number of active cases in Oyo State to seven”.
It has been our aspiration to test a lot more people and we think as we do this mass testing, we can see the pattern of the virus within our environment and from those results, we can implement appropriate measures designed to deal with the situation.
While the 100-bed Infectious Disease Centre at Olodo is ready to receive cases, we are already upgrading the isolation centre at LAUTECH Teaching Hospital, Ogbomoso. The Maternal and Child Health Centre, Saki is also being converted to an isolation centre.
The General Hospital at Igbo-Ora is being evaluated for a section of it to be used as an isolation centre. The state in conjunction with concerned stakeholders have organised a mass test centre at Adamasingba, with an initial projection of covering 2,000 in the state.
On the initial projected resumption of the state workforce, he said the results coming from Adamasingba Stadium has made the government to move the resumption at the State Secretariat forward to Monday, the 27th of April 2020. He however affirmed that the decision is subject to further evaluation based on circumstances closer to that time.
Speaking further on government’s efforts to mitigate the effect of COVID-19 on food security, especially with the expected arrival of planting season, Makinde hinted that the state government is ramping up on enlightenment of the farmers on how best to remain safe during the planting season.
According to the Governor, “we are also collaborating with the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA) and the Institute of Agricultural Research and Training (IART) to get seedlings for the farmers so that they don’t miss the planting season”.
Stressing further, He said “We are still working on palliatives; we now have the data & we’re sure that we’ve been able to identify the poorest of the poor in our environment. Palliatives will be distributed by the end of next week. We want to ensure that the palliatives get to those who actually need them”.
Governor Makinde lauded the commitment of front line workers in the fight against the global enemy, especially the health workers and media men. He promised that his government will continue to make their welfare the priority and ensure that they are adequately protected as they remain on the front lines in the fight against COVID-19 in Oyo State.
