Popular Nigerian singer, Omawumi, has revealed that she cut her hair live in her recent music video due to the despair she felt from the loss of lives during the pandemic and the EndSARS protest last year.
She made this known in a recent interview with HipTV, saying that during the period, she felt pain that people were dying and the country was celebrating mediocrity.
Omawunmi said, “I cut my hair on my video that I did; the song is titled BS. I cut my hair live on that video because when I was writing it, I was in a place of despair. It was during the pandemic and I was losing people left right center.”
“There was the ‘Soro Soke’ in the background. People were dying. It just felt like nothing was going right with the country. We were celebrating mediocrity.”
Soro soke’, which means ‘speak up’ in Yoruba, was one of the popular phrases during the End SARS protests and was commonly thrown about on protest grounds.
Omawumi stated that she was very tired at that point and decided to do away with her hair, describing the period as a “redefining moment” for her.
Her song, ‘Bullshit’, for which she cut her hair, was released in April 2021, months before the release of her fifth body of work titled Love, Deep, High Life.
The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) says further investigation is needed to conclusively rule out a theory that Covid-19 emerged from a laboratory in China.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Tuesday that although a laboratory leak is the least likely cause, more extensive research is needed.
The virus was first detected in Wuhan, in China’s Hubei province in late 2019.
The Chinese government has dismissed the allegations of a virus leak.
Since the novel coronavirus was first identified, more than 2.7 million people are known have died from it, with more than 127 million cases worldwide.
An international team of experts travelled to Wuhan in January to probe the origins of the virus. Their research relied on samples and evidence provided by Chinese officials.
Dr Tedros said the team had difficulty accessing raw data and called for “more timely and comprehensive data sharing” in the future.
image captionMembers of the WHO team visited the Wuhan Institute of Virology as part of their investigation
The team investigated all possibilities, including one theory that the virus had originated at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The institute is the world’s leading authority on the collection, storage and study of bat coronaviruses.
Former US President Donald Trump was among those who supported the theory that the virus might have escaped from a lab.
But a report by WHO and Chinese experts released on Tuesday and seen by AFP news agency, said the lab leak explanation was highly unlikely and the virus had probably jumped from bats to humans via another intermediary animal.
However the theory “requires further investigation, potential with additional missions involving specialist experts,” Dr Tedros said.
“Let me say clearly that as far as WHO is concerned, all hypothesis remain on the table,” he added.
Also on Tuesday, WHO investigation team leader, Peter Ben Embarek, said his team had found no evidence that any laboratories in Wuhan were involved in the outbreak.
He added that his team had felt under political pressure, including from outside China but said he was never pressed to remove anything from the team’s final report.
Dr Embarak added that it was “perfectly possible” that cases were circulating in the Wuhan area in October or November 2019. China informed the WHO about cases on 3 January, a month after the first reported infection.
Shortly after, the US and 13 allies including South Korea, Australia and the UK, voiced concern over the report and urged China to provide “full access” to experts. The statement said the mission to Wuhan was “significantly delayed and lacked access to complete, original data and samples”.
The group pledged to work together with the WHO.
China has refuted claims the virus originated in a lab and says that although Wuhan is where the first cluster of cases was detected, it is not necessarily where the virus originated. State media has claimed that the virus may have arrived in Wuhan on frozen food imports.
The country has largely brought its own outbreak under control through quick mass testing, stringent lockdowns and tight travel restrictions.
Brazil has recorded 268,370 fatalities since the pandemic began
Brazil has exceeded 2,000 Covid-related deaths in a single day for the first time, as infection rates soar.
The country has the second highest death toll in the world, behind the US, with a total of 268,370 fatalities. Wednesday’s total was 2,286.
Experts warn the transmission rate is made worse by more contagious variants.
On Wednesday, former leader Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva hit out at President Jair Bolsonaro’s “stupid” decisions made during the pandemic.
Mr Bolsonaro, who was pictured wearing a mask for the first time in a month on Wednesday, has consistently sought to downplay the threat posed by the virus. Earlier this week he told people to “stop whining”.
The surge in cases has put health systems in most of Brazil’s largest cities under immense pressure, with many close to collapse, Brazil’s leading public health centre Fiocruz warns.
Margareth Dalcolmo, a doctor and researcher at Fiocruz said the country was “at the worst moment of the pandemic”.
“2021 is still going to be a very hard year,” she told AFP news agency.
The latest deaths mean Brazil has a rate of 128 deaths per 100,000 population – 11th highest amongst 20 of the worst affected countries in the world. The highest rates are in the Czech Republic with 208 deaths per 100,000 people and the UK with 188 deaths per 100,000 people, according to Johns Hopkins University in the US.
Thursday is the anniversary of a pandemic being declared by the World Health Organization. Worldwide more than 118 million cases of the virus have been recorded, and more than 2.6 million deaths.
What’s the situation in Brazil?
On Wednesday, the country recorded 79,876 new cases, the third highest number in a single day. A surge in cases in recent days has been attributed to the spread of a highly contagious variant of the virus – named P1 – which is thought to have originated in the Amazon city of Manaus.
A total of 2,286 people died with the virus on Wednesday.
Reports say the capital Brasilia has now reached full ICU capacity, while two cities – Porto Alegre and Campo Grande – have exceeded capacity.
In its report, the institute warned that figures point to the “overload and even collapse of health systems”.
Brazilian epidemiologist Dr Pedro Hallal told the BBC’s Outside Source TV programme: “If we do not start vaccinating the population here very soon, it will become a massive tragedy.”
Dr Hallal, who works in Rio Grande do Sul, said people felt “abandoned by the federal government”.
Mr Bolsonaro has belittled the risks posed by the virus from the start of the pandemic. He has also opposed quarantine measures taken at a regional level, arguing that the damage to the economy would be worse than the effects of the virus itself.
Preliminary data suggests the P1 variant could be up to twice as transmittable as the original version of the virus.
It also suggests that the new variant could evade immunity built up by having had the original version of Covid. The chance of reinfection is put at between 25% and 60%.
image captionThe new coronavirus variant first detected in Brazil has led to a surge in deaths in the country
Last week, the Fiocruz Institute said P1 was just one of several “variants of concern” that have become dominant in six of eight states studied by the Rio-based organisation.
“This information is an atomic bomb,” said Roberto Kraenkel, of the Covid-19 Brazil Observatory, told the Washington Post newspaper.
World Health Organization Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has described the situation in Brazil as “very concerning” and warned of a possible regional spillover.
The present director general of NAFDAC, Professor Mojisola Christianah Adeyeye stated that only 30% of medicines are produced in Nigeria while the remaining 70% are imported. Apparently, the statistic of drugs produced in the country is outrageously low. In my own view, I would say that this has been one of the major setbacks for pharmacists in the country and a reason why a youth like me will rather opt to study medicine.
Director General of NAFDAC
Pharmacists, Virologists, Botanists, Biochemists, Chemists, Microbiologists and other related disciplines are needed around the world during a crucial period (pandemic) like this. However , in Nigeria, you see a Biochemist working in the bank as a cashier or in an organization as a personal assistant. Disciplines such as these do not just exist for people to be educated…more than that, it is because they have a purpose to proffer solutions which will make this space, “the earth” , a safe habitat for humans.
Who isn’t relevant? Which discipline isn’t relevant? Now we can see the lapses and downside of not maximizing the potentials of these professionals in Nigeria. Madagascar produced an herbal concoction to fight coronavirus with the support of its government. A similar kind of herbal concoction that Nigerian herbal practitioners produce in their homes to save cost. This calls for attention, how long do we wait before the government begin to explore the talents and brains displayed by its people?
Even a regulatory body like NAFDAC will take forever to approve a medicine or processed food. I must admit that at the moment, setting up a food processing company isn’t an option for me…perhaps, in future. At the moment, I will rather farm and sell the proceeds. Why do I say this? It feels like everything in Nigeria is politicised and being an employee isn’t as difficult as being an entrepreneur. As an entrepreneur you try to set things up but what about the policies? Are there policies which will make entrepreneurs to thrive in their businesses and not create major setbacks?
The director general also stated that capital punishment will be the penalty for people who produce fake drugs. Of course over the years, the agency “NAFDAC” battled with this, even up till now. What about producing items without an approved NAFDAC number? That’s also an offence according to the rules laid down by NAFDAC but what do we see? We see so many entrepreneurs setting up businesses and not getting their commodities approved by NAFDAC when it is required. However desperation and survival reasons are given by entrepreneurs who take this risk.
If it is quite affordable to get a NAFDAC approval in the monetary aspect aside other requirements , I can bet that more people will venture into production. This will in turn drastically reduce the rate at which drugs are imported into the country. If the government doesn’t embrace and support local production, who will? Now the government spends millions to purchase surgical face masks and personal protective equipment for our health practitioners. What exactly do we produce in this country aside ankara fabric?
The President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), says Nigeria’s economy may slip back into recession.
Buhari poke at the presentation of the 2021 budget estimates to the Joint Session of the National Assembly on Thursday in Abuja.
The president explained that Nigeria’s economy is being battered by the global economic fallout from COVID-19, adding that a drop in crude oil prices deprives the country of key revenues.
He presented a budget of N13.1 trillion, which represents over 20 per cent increase from last year’s spending plan.
The budget, he said, comes with a deficit of N4.8 trillion that will be financed mainly by borrowing.
Buhari noted that global crude prices tumbled early in the year, falling below $20 per barrel in April.
He said, “The 2021 Budget was prepared amidst a challenging global and domestic environment due to the persistent headwinds from the Coronavirus Pandemic. The resulting global economic recession, low oil prices and heightened global economic uncertainty have had important implications for our economy.
The Nigerian economy is currently facing serious challenges, with the macroeconomic environment being significantly disrupted by the Coronavirus Pandemic. Real Gross Domestic Product growth declined by 6.1 percent in the second quarter of 2020.
“This ended the 3-year trend of positive, but modest, real GDP growth recorded since the second quarter of 2017. I am glad to note that, through our collective efforts, our economy performed relatively better than that of many other developed and emerging economies.
GDP growth is projected to be negative in the third quarter of this year. As such, our economy may lapse into the second recession in four years, with significant adverse consequences.
“However, we are working assiduously to ensure a rapid recovery in 2021. We remain committed to implementing programmes to lift 100 million Nigerians out of poverty over the next 10 years.”
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