I Was Lucky To Experience Mild Symptoms Of Coronavirus – Sanwo-Olu

Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu has come out to share his coronavirus experience.

He recently revealed that battling the virus and defeating it reminds him of how he needs to be more careful amid the pandemic.

According to him, he can only thank God because his own case was very mild, but he has seen people who experienced the severe kind and didn’t make it.

He added that Lagos State has crossed 44,000 cases already, so Lagosians cannot afford to take the pandemic for granted.

His words, “On recovery from Covid-19 COVID-19 presents itself differently to different patients. I certainly would be the first to say it was a different experience even in my family; the way my wife reacted is different from the way I reacted and likewise few of my staff reactions were different too but coming out of COVID gives a clear indication that we need to take things very seriously because the way in which each and every one of us react to it is different. I would say my own was a mild case, others were just asymptomatic and some people were very severe. But if you think coming out of COVID I can handle everything and anything, I would certainly not agree with you but I will give it a good shot.”

“So, what I would say to a whole lot of our youths and everyone is to say that as a government and person, we have learnt so much from 2020. We have learnt from a pandemic that has never ravaged the world in 100 years and which has Lagos at its epicenter. We had protests that we have never seen in this part of the country before and the aftermath of it, as a government we have learnt from it. We have seen all the bites and conversation coming out of it and we are saying transparently that, let all of us together take it forward and build a better society for ourselves.”

“Just to put the figure right, we have actually crossed 44,000 cases as we speak (as at Sunday). But to also put in proper context, the current figure is coming out of a test of about 280,000 that we have done in the state, which is more than half of what is done nationally. So, that has given us the positivity of about 16 per cent. But in terms of compliance and enforcement, when we brought out those rules in April/May last year, people still didn’t have the level of understanding they have today; they still believe that it was something that was foreign and it is something far from us but right now, almost everybody understands and sees that it is real, especially the second wave. After the first wave slowed down, this second wave has shown us that we cannot take this pandemic for granted. In terms of level of compliance.”

“I certainly also have to continue to lead from the front as Incident Commander in the state. So what it requires is to continue to show leadership and to continue to tell our people that they have to take responsibility but government will indeed do its very best at all times to keep all citizens safe. And for us doing that means that all the requirements that we need to make as a government like scaling up treatment and providing facilities required, we would do everything to ensure the health of our citizens. I am certainly not going to back down. We are not shying away from our responsibilities and we will continue to encourage our frontline health workers who are usually in the eye of the storm, who are the real heroes in all the attempts to flatten the curve and come out of this very difficult second wave that we are currently seeing.”

“Last year, after COVID-19 lockdown and EndSARS protest, we saw a lot of people losing trust in government and I am sure you have been getting feelers from people out there. If you were to speak to that person who seems to have lost trust in government, what will you be saying?”

“If you don’t learn from what has happened yesterday, you probably don’t have a tomorrow. So for me personally, it is not really to dwell so much on the past, learn from the past but have a conversation going forward; have a plan, have an agenda that you can take forward.”