Nigeria’s Presidential Steering Committee on COVID-19 has again rolled out new precautionary measures that will further prevent the country from being caught napping owing to the record of a spike in the pandemic particularly in three countries of India, Turkey and Brazil.
According to the committee, the latest measures were taken after reviewing “the country’s COVID-19 response in the light of the rising trend in several countries and the high risk of surge in Africa”.
The committee had earlier announced the denial of entry into Nigeria by non-Nigerian passport holders and non-residents who visited Brazil, India or Turkey within fourteen days preceding travel to Nigeria.
As a way of preventing the importation of the widespread prevalence of new variants of the pandemic to Nigeria, the committee has among others reinforced the surveillance system at the various points of entry into the country.
The latest measures include: enforcement of mandatory requirements for a 7-day quarantine for all international passengers arriving from all countries and institutional quarantine for international passengers arriving from specific high burden countries.
Under the latest measures, relevant government agencies will henceforth, enforce temperature checks and “No-Mask, No-Entry” policy at the airports as also expected in all public settings.
Of utmost importance is the announcement of the committee to actively discourage air travels both on the domestic and international scenes particularly during the holiday season.
According to the anti COVID-19 committee, henceforth, both international and domestic travelers must abide by all existing protocols it earlier issued while passengers should arrive their choice airports 1.5 hours for domestic flights and three hours for international passengers as a result of delay that may likely occur as a result of the new measures.
Without doubt the aviation sector particularly the airline scene has continued to be in a precarious state for over one year now due to the outbreak of the pandemic.
At the peak of the pandemic, a lot of measures were introduced by the federal government just like other governments across the world.
Unfortunately, while the various measures had and still affecting the different sectors of economies across the world, the most hit has been the airline business which did not exempt the Nigerian airlines.
Due to the tough measures, many airlines had folded up with thousands of workers sacked while the few ones in existence including the ones in Nigeria are operating haphazardly.
With the predictions given by the different international aviation bodies like International Air Transport Association (IATA) and the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), it may take the global aviation almost a decade or more to recover from the the negative impact of the pandemic.
Amidst the overwhelming struggles of the Nigerian carriers and the country’s aviation sector, the latest measures introduced by the presidential committee though said to remain in place till early next month, there is no doubt that there are more challenges ahead of the entire sector.
As the pandemic continues to ravage the aviation sector in particular, the latest measures announced by the presidential committee is a welcome development as there is the need for the government through the relevant authorities to ensure the absolute compliance with the measures as it affected air travels.
It is no longer news that the three countries with record of a rise in the pandemic with the discovery of new variants, are part of the countries Nigerians travel to regularly, therefore all hands must be on the deck at the airports to ensure passengers or flights from the three countries especially are prevented from having access to the country to avoid a repeat of the Ebola disease imported into the country.
While this is no good time for aviation and airline business in Nigeria, the situation calls for understanding as the ravaging pandemic represents a phase which must definitely pass away at the right time.
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