NCDC Boss Challenges Nigerians, Businesses On Post-COVID-19 Era
- Canvasses plans’ readjustment, new models
BY EDMOND ODOK, ABUJA – The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) says post COVID-19 era, the world will no longer be the same and business owners must be awake to the reality of evolving new operational models for effective service delivery.
The Centre explained that the current global fight against the coronavirus outbreak places a huge burden on Nigerians, particularly businesses, to think ahead and out-of-box in planning for life after the pandemic.
Speaking through its Director General, Dr Chikwe Ihekweazu, on Channels Television programme, Sunrise Daily Thursday morning, the NCDC said: “There will be a new COVID-19 era that we will not be the same as the pre-COVID-19″ period.”
“So, what I am encouraging every Nigerian is to start thinking about the post-lockdown era and how they will arrange their lives differently”, Dr Ihekweazu said
According to him, “I really encourage every small business, every community to be thinking about this because at some point, President Muhammadu Buhari will have to reopen the country slowly.
“I think there will be a gradual, carefully calibrated re-opening of the economy.
“I don’t anticipate where everything will be opened at once, schools, markets and airports will reopen on the same day.”
Dr Ihekweazu also said the people’s behaviours in shops, schools and some of the social distancing currently in place may continue for sometime even after the containment of the pandemic and every business must therefore be prepared with their owners putting thinking caps to churn out innovative models for operational efficiency.
In the circumstance, “They should be thinking of how do I run my business differently?; How do I run my restaurant differently?; How do I organise my school and teaching differently in the context of COVID-19.
“And at the same time, we have to keep trying to prevent transmission. So, we have to find a middle path between a locked down country and the one that is able to respond to the big public health challenge that we have facing us”, he said
Asked to offer some tips on the way forward, the NCDC boss said: “I don’t have all the answers but what I am encouraging everyone is to think about how they will run their lives differently in order to stay safe while returning to life.
“There is no prescription around it because businesses are different, schools, markets, supermarkets, roads, our societies are different.”
He also stated that going forward, the challenge will be on “how to sustain the hand washing; sustain the sanitisers; sustain the masks that are necessary; and sustain physical distancing that we have been able to encourage everyone to act on.
“For example, If I were to be running a restaurant that I will normally have a capacity of 100, I will now plan on how I can run that with 50 not 100, so I can keep people sufficiently apart.
“If I have a school with perhaps 1,000 pupils, I will be thinking and planning, perhaps, a quarter goes to the play ground at a time, another quarter has a different break time and so on; that is the kind of thinking” businesses must be putting their minds on exploring post COVID-19 era.
Admitting there are emerging challenges in its service delivery, Dr Ihekweazu expressed the resolve and commitment of NCDC’s team and other public health workers nationwide to ensure the present COVID-19 and its attendant health challenges are effectively addressed to make Nigeria safe again – With additional NAN reports
