No Covid-19 Vaccination = No Work For Nigerian Civil Servants

Nigeria's Chairperson of the Presidential Steering Committee on Covid-19, Boss Mustapha, has said that at the beginning of December 1, 2021 all federal government employees will be required to show proof of Covid-19 vaccination or present a negative PCR result to gain access to their offices.

The government has also announced the lifting of travel restrictions for passengers from South Africa, Turkey, and Brazil. But it has not announced any lifting of restrictions for travellers from India. The government barred travellers from Brazil, India, and Turkey in May 2021 due to rising Covid-19 cases in those countries.

According to Mustapha, statistics generated over the last four weeks has shown that the trend of infection is going down in some states while going up in others.

The government also disclosed that a total of 3,142,971 people have been tested for Covid-19 since the disease broke out in 2020. This is less than 2% of Nigeria's estimated 206 million population. Inadequate vaccine doses and hesitancy by citizens are blamed for the low vaccination rate. However, millions of doses received in recent months through the Covax facility are expected to boost the vaccination campaign.

The U.S. is sending more than 3.5 million doses of the two-shot Pfizer vaccine to Nigeria. This follows a July 2021 donation of 4 million doses of the two-shot Moderna vaccine.

According to the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, the country has recorded at least 208,404 confirmed Covid-19 cases, 196,123 recoveries, and over 2,761 fatalities.