He said COVID-19 is still a public health issue, therefore government will continue to lead from the front.

Governor Sanwo-Olu while stressing the need for collaborative efforts to address COVID-19 pandemic in the country, advised the public to keep to all the protocols by wearing their facemask, washing of hands regularly, maintaining social distancing and staying away from huge crowd.

The Governor while commending the visionary thoughts of the Reddington Group for putting up the Armoured Shield Isolation Centre, said the good gesture is a plus for public and private sector collaboration.

He said: “This isolation centre is important for us as a government because it is a clear demonstration of power of collaboration between the public and private sector and ensuring that we cannot do it all by ourselves. And when public issues arose and private sector raises up to such occasion, the least we can do is to encourage them.

“We are going through the second wave of COVID-19 pandemic and we cannot stop the advocacy. We cannot stop talking about it. Some people thought coronavirus is for some set or type of people; it know no race, no religion, no economic status.

“Over the last 10 months, we have seen many cases of coronavirus. We came out of the first wave and we really did not shot down but we were anticipating that there would be a second wave. But we really did not know that even the second wave would be stronger than the first wave.”

Speaking on his administration commitment to addressing COVID-19 pandemic in Lagos State, Governor Sanwo-Olu said: “For us as a government we have continued to heighten and raise the level of our preparedness. Over the last four, five months, we have been building oxygen centres; we have about 10 of them at our secondary facilities and we have commissioned about five of them now.

Because we have taken time to understand the movement of the virus, we know that it affects more people around the respiratory issue and when it affects respiratory organs, you need a lot more oxygen than ordinarily than you have. And so, in anticipation, we have provided that and we are still scaling up that provision.

In his address, the Chairman of Reddington Hospital Group, Dr. Yomi Onabowale, commended Governor Sanwo-Olu for battling the first wave of COVID-19 pandemic.

“I want to commend Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, the Incident Commander for Lagos State. He has done extremely well in leadership, especially in Lagos State in battling the first pandemic and in ensuring that Lagos was safe. And I have no doubt that he would rise again to meet this current challenge,” he said.

The Armoured Shield Medical Complex and its Command structure is situated in four different locations across Lagos with an Incident Command Office in Victoria Island. It is the only private hospital group in Lagos with in-house facility for PCR testing, ambulance response, CT scan, isolation care, hospital care with Level 3 ICU capacity for COVID-19 treatment.