Nigeria confirmed its first case of Covid-19 on February 27, 2020, when an Italian citizen on a business trip from Milan who had arrived in Lagos on February 25 tested positive for the virus. By March 22, when governments at both the federal and state levels began to intensify measures to contain the contagion, about twenty-seven cases were already confirmed. There were widespread concerns that the fragile public health-care system of Africa’s most populous country, with a population of 200 million people, would be unable to cope with a rapidly spreading pandemic. It would require quick action to prevent a large number of people from being infected and provide treatment to existing Covid-19 patients.
Covid-19 in East Asia
In these essays, scholars examine how East Asian countries responded to the Covid-19 crisis, analyzing the pandemic’s impact from international relationships to domestic affairs.