Parts of Imo State were thrown into panic on Saturday with news that the dreaded novel coronavirus (COVID-19) might have berthed in the state with three suspected cases in Owerri, the state capital.
This comes on the heels of the state governor Hope Uzodinma having ordered the sealing of the Fancy Hotels Ltd located at Road 7, Imo Umuguma Housing in Owerri West.
Unconfirmed reports and rumours making the rounds in the state capital indicated that a guest at the hotel had slumped and died of the suspected coronavirus after leaving the hotel which had caused panic among the residents of Imo Housing Umuguma and its environs.
A member of the committee of the state COVID-19 response committee and the state chairman of the Nigeria Medical Association (NMA), Dr Kyrian Duruewuru, has, however, dispelled the rumours as “not true”.
According to him, “it is not true that somebody has died of the coronavirus in the state, but we have taken the blood samples of three suspected cases for testing and one of them is from a hotel and the results are not out yet and so I cannot confirm right away that there is no one with the coronavirus in the state for now.”
A staff of the Fancy Hotels who spoke on condition of anonymity said that that security men had arrived at the hotel about 1 am Saturday morning and directed that nobody should leave the hotel, including all guests, and that they were never informed of the reason for their action.
According to the source, the security men told the occupants of the hotel that they were to remain in the hotel for 14 days.
“We have five guests, including the staff who had been on night shift. We were supposed to leave in the morning,” the source told our correspondent.
The source added that the occupants have not eaten since they were locked in and that if they are going to remain locked in for 14 days that the government would have to provide them with food.
Responding to this claim, the Imo State Commissioner for Information, Hon Declan Emelumba, said that the governor had ordered the hotel sealed because the management had flouted the directives of the state government that all hotels in the state should take the temperature of all the guests who are coming to the hotel as well as to provide hand sanitizers.
He also dismissed the rumour that a guest of the hotel had died of the suspected coronavirus.
“The governor had ordered the hotel to be sealed because the management had flouted the directives of the government that all the hotels in the state should take the temperature of any of their guest and to provide sanitizers as a preventative measure against the coronavirus from spreading in the state.
Again, it is not true that a guest of the hotel had died as being rumoured. He was taken to hospital where he is being treated and it is after being tested and if the results come out that we can know his status. But right now, we don’t have coronavirus in the state,” the commissioner stated.