COVID-19: Lagos targets 60% COVID-19 vaccine roll-out, engages Pfizer, other vaccine developers

By Olamide Francis

Lagos State Governor, Mr. Babajide Sanwo-Olu, has revealed the state government’s plans on the coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccine roll-out and the efforts to bolster mass vaccination of residents in the state.

Gov. Sanwo-Olu disclosed that the state is aiming to achieve 60 percent vaccine roll-out when the vaccination programme commences in the coming weeks, stressing that the figure would help check the rate of transmission and build the resilience of the state against the ravaging virus.

The governor spoke on “Sunday Politics,” a live television programme anchored by Channels TV’s, Kayode Okikiolu.

He also spoke on activities of his government since inception and other germane issues around the development of Lagos.

Gov. Sanwo-Olu said the state government did not have the plan to make the COVID-19 vaccine available to all residents, as the state may not have the resources to do that, but said critical segments of the state’s population would be vaccinated to achieve herd immunity against the pandemic.

Aside from the vaccine arrangement being made by the Federal Government for states, the governor said Lagos, which is the epicentre of the COVID-19 infection, had activated plans to augment the vaccine that would be delivered to the state.

He said: “As a sovereign, we want the Federal Government to take the lead in getting the vaccine. As a sub-national government, we are taking our destiny into our own hands. We have started a conversation with some of the vaccine manufacturers. I have made contact with Pfizer and Oxford-AstraZeneca. Developers of Moderna have written to us and we have written back to them.

“We are making our own sub-national contacts and part of the things to come out of this effort is that once we see what the national government is doing in terms of protocols, then we can plan for our roll-out. The contacts we made with vaccine developers are at the board level.

“We don’t have to vaccinate the whole of 22 million people in Lagos. The plan is around ensuring that there is herd immunity and that typically, speaks to 50 to 60 percent of our population. That’s the target we need to really meet in vaccine roll-out.”

On how the state would get resources to fund its vaccine programme, the governor said the bulk of the finances would be realised from private-sector donations and international grants, adding that the state government also had allocation for the COVID-19 project in its 2021 budget.

Gov. Sanwo-Olu also spoke on how his administration had strengthened security and the plan to improve the efficiency of the security architecture in Lagos. He said that the state would continue to push for the domestication of state policing as a strategy to efficiently combat crime and strengthen security across the state, just as he stressed the need to employ technology in intelligence gathering.

According to the governor, the state government is on the verge of rolling-out 2,000 security cameras across communities through the Lagos State Security Trust Fund (LSSTF).

He said: “One of the things we can do quickly is to improve the ratio of police to citizen’s number. That has not happened in a number of years. We believe that Lagos is under-policed, even as the human population increases. If we address this imbalance through the state policing model, we can see a turn-around in security response. We are ready to have this conversation with the police whenever they are ready.

“In our Smart City project, we are installing 2,000 high-definition security cameras to boost security architecture in Lagos. We are set and before the end of the year, a lot of cameras will be up on our streets. Technology is one of the things we can use to efficiently provide security. With the data from the cameras, we can get more deterrent from trouble-makers.”