Exposing Empirical Links between COVID-19 Situation Report and Available Data: The Case of Nigeria

Zakariya, Yusuf F.

Ever since the index case of COVID-19 was announced in Nigeria, the number of confirmed cases has gradually increased to 46,140 (about 4.5% of total confirmed cases in Africa) as the time of writing this article. This seemingly low number of confirmed cases has provoked heated debates among researchers. This cross-sectional study explores the Nigerian COVID-19 report to expose some links between the number of confirmed cases, testing, and some environmental conditions. The findings reveal that there is no state in Nigeria which has up to 12 confirmed cases per 10,000 population. That means, the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases is less than 0.15% of the population of people across each state in Nigeria. On the flip side, it was revealed that the proportion of samples tested for COVID-19 is low compared to the population. The percentages ranging from less than 0.1% to a maximum of 0.7% of each state population in which 23 states out of the 37 states are within the less than 0.1% range. Furthermore, there is a substantial correlation [Formula: see text] between the confirmed cases and testing. In contrast, no substantial correlation was found between the former with either average temperature or rainfall.