“We can’t reopen and go back to normal. We will immediately have a huge resurgence of the infection in our country and that is exactly what you want to protect,” Ihekweazu said.

On the possibility of extended lockdown in some parts of the country, Ihekweazu said that the NCDC would be working over the next 10 days with the thinking that the current window was its last window to make appreciable progress.

“We will work extremely hard over the next 10 days to make the best use of the opportunity which is probably the last window of opportunity we have to make some progress with the response.

“We are completely aware of the hard times that Nigerians are going through and we want to make sure we make progress with response to make sure that slowly, in a calibrated way, we open up some parts of the economy to start working,” Ihekweazu said.

NIGERIAN TRIBUNE