To panic is human, yet what is even more so is to hope. Hope is the intoxicating chemical that successfully floated many human societies into surviving this long, and with it, we will survive anything – the Coronavirus included.

This explains why days after the discharge of the index patient who is an Italian, the news coming out today about the imminent discharge of 6 more Coronavirus patients by the Lagos State Government is fantastic, to say the least. The pandemic has taken over 20000 lives globally since it broke out in January 2020, but connected to that figure is a number few remember or feel is overly important to mention.

UPDATE!!!!#COVID19Lagos

6 of our #COVID19 inpatients have recovered and will be discharged soon.

There's something Lagos is doing right. Lagos takes the lead. ???

— Tunde Ajayi (@thetundeajayi) March 26, 2020

It comes out of the 416, 686 total number of infected worldwide reported by the World Health Organisation (WHO), which means that over 390, 000 have recovered from the virus. This hopeful news also implies that, of the reported 31 cases in the country’s largest city, 7 have recovered in Lagos and 1 in neighbouring Ogun, with one fatality in the country.

As the COVID-19 Incident Commander for Lagos, I am glad to inform you that the index case; the Italian gentleman is now negative.

Through a combined effort of Lagos, Ogun State and Fed Health Authorities, we were able to limit the transmission of the virus to a single contact. pic.twitter.com/PDvAsLLAnP

— Babajide Sanwo-Olu (@jidesanwoolu) March 20, 2020

As Lagos prepares to enter into lockdown, this is a fresh justification that our collective efforts to keep ourselves and one another safe in order to curb the spread of the Coronavirus, will pay off, and even ultimately lead to a song of total victory if we persevere.

In the meantime, while Nigerians are coming together to raise awareness about COVID-19, many Twitter users are using the period of self-distancing to create informational videos in their local dialects, with the hope that the more rightly informed everyone is, the better our chances to fight this scourge.

When we do get through this, and it is without a doubt that we will; the outstanding take home will be the human capacity to come together in times of crisis, uplift one another and overcome together.

What are you doing to help stem the spread and flatten the curve? Try thinking beyond yourself but staying safe, for all our sake is good enough!

Op-ed Editor