The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) has recorded 14 fresh COVID-19 related deaths and 1,617 new cases of COVID-19 on Jan. 18, the NCDC made this known on its verified website on Monday night.

It added that the country has so far tested 1,172,234 people since the first confirmed case of COVID-19 was recorded on Feb. 27, 2020 in the country.

The public health Institute also reported an additional 14 deaths, bringing the total number of casualties from the virus to 1,449.

It said that till date, the country had recorded 112,004 COVID-19 infections with 89,939 cases successfully treated and discharged in the country.

The NCDC said that the 1,617 new cases were reported from 17 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) in the last 24 hours.

The agency said that almost 50 per cent of the new cases recorded on Monday were from Lagos, with 776 infections.

Other states with new cases were Kaduna-147, Kwara-131, FCT-102, Plateau-78, Edo-59, Ogun-53, Osun-45, Rivers-37, Taraba-36 Nasarawa-34, Adamawa-33, Kano-26, Delta-20, Ebonyi-16, Bayelsa-11, Gombe-11, and Borno-2.

NCDC said that 622 more patients were discharged after testing negative to coronavirus across the country in the last 24 hours.

The health agency said that those discharged included 289 community recoveries in Lagos State managed in line with the extant guidelines.

It said that a multi-sectoral national Emergency Operations Centre (EOC), activated at Level 3, was coordinating response activities nationwide.

It was recalled that the country has witnessed a surge in new cases since the Federal Government announced a second wave of the pandemic in December 2020.

The snapshot of the country as at Jan. 17, was Cases: 110,387, Active Cases: 22,156 20.34 per cent, Discharged: 89,317 78.36 per cent, Fatalities: 1,435 1.30 per cent and Tests: 1,172,234, all spread across the 36 States and the FCT.

In week two of 2021, the statistics revealed the following:Cases: 10,300, Deaths: 77 and Active Cases 19,635.

All these numbers represented increases compared with the numbers from week one, 2021.

Also one in every five people tested in the country within the passing week turned out positive.

In spite of the surge, schools reopened in most states across the country under the Federal Government’s directive,

While critics have faulted the re-opening, the government says return to the classrooms should be done in line with COVID-19 regulations such as social distancing and wearing of face-masks.