The Gombe state taskforce on COVID-19, Tuesday, said three commissioners, six state lawmakers and a special adviser have been confirmed to be COVID-19 positive in the state.
The state Commissioner for Information, Mr. Ibrahim Alhassan Kwami announced this during the committee’s daily briefing on the pandemic.
The state Governor, Alhaji Inuwa Yahaya, had last week Thursday ordered the closure of Government House and directed that all its staff, including political appointees who, in the course of their assignments, had something doing in the place to surrender themselves for sample test to know their status.
A director in the office of the Secretary to the State Government (SSG) was recently reported to have died of the pandemic, a development that sent shivers down the spine of the staff.
Addressing journalists, the commissioner said: “More tests are currently ongoing and that hopefully, all civil servants in the state, as well as members of the public, will be tested to ascertain their status.”
Also speaking, chairman of the task force, Professor Idris Muhammed stated that in just four days, the state recorded 63 positive cases of COVID-19 out of the 609 samples taken to Abuja for testing.
He said the increase in positive cases may not be unconnected with the massive test undertaken across the state to ascertain the status of all residents.
The chairman said the taskforce would liaise with communities in the state to ensure proper contact tracing and testing.
“Our fear that community spread of the virus could land the state into more trouble if money is not released to the community to continue its activities and engage in massive testing.
“Gombe state has so far recorded 10 deaths with 89 active cases at the moment. Just now, we received results which showed that out of six results, four were positive.
“Now with this development, we have established that there is a community spread of the virus in the state, indicating that we must engage communities through massive social mobilization, advocacy and education.