The Federal Government has come out to assure operators of the Nigerian Betting Industry that the government is committed to making sure they do not battle undue setbacks during the coronavirus pandemic.

FG recently revealed that it will not hesitate to give necessary approvals for any kind of palliative that will ensure their business stays viable due to the peculiarities of the industry.

Speaking during a video conference meeting with the Sports Betting Permit holders across Nigeria, Director General of the National Lottery Regulatory Commission, NLRC, Lanre Gbajabiamila revealed that FG is interested in protecting every business in the betting sector since they cannot fold their arms and watch these businesses with huge investment go down the drain.

He added that investors in the industry should keep playing by the rules and the required support they need from the government will be rendered.

His words, “As your regulator, we feel obliged to touch base with you, find out the challenges you are facing in your business and see how we can continue to work together, despite the difficulties occasioned by this ugly pandemic.

“Let me assure everyone that government will do the best it can to protect every business within the industry, we cannot fold our arms and watch our industry with the huge investment therein go down the drain.”

“I am optimistic that the Federal Government will not hesitate to give necessary approvals for any form of palliative that will ensure your business remains viable because ours is a very peculiar industry which if properly harnessed would adequately shore up the much-needed revenue for the government.

“Yours is to ensure that you all play by the rule, while on the part of the government, we will do all it takes to give needed support for all business to remain viable.”

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Coronaviruses are a group of related viruses that cause diseases in mammals and birds. In humans, coronaviruses cause respiratory tract infections that can be mild, such as some cases of the common cold (among other possible causes, predominantly rhinoviruses), and others that can be lethal, such as SARS, MERS, and COVID-19. Symptoms in other species vary: in chickens, they cause an upper respiratory tract disease, while in cows and pigs they cause diarrhea. There are yet to be vaccines or antiviral drugs to prevent or treat human coronavirus infections.

Coronaviruses constitute the subfamily Orthocoronavirinae, in the family Coronaviridae, order Nidovirales, and realm Riboviria. They are enveloped viruses with a positive-sense single-stranded RNA genome and a nucleocapsid of helical symmetry. The genome size of coronaviruses ranges from approximately 27 to 34 kilobases, the largest among known RNA viruses. The name coronavirus is derived from the Latin corona, meaning “crown” or “halo”, which refers to the characteristic appearance reminiscent of a crown or a solar corona around the virions (virus particles) when viewed under two-dimensional transmission electron microscopy, due to the surface covering in club-shaped protein spikes.

Human coronaviruses were first discovered in the late 1960s. The earliest ones discovered were an infectious bronchitis virus in chickens and two in human patients with the common cold (later named human coronavirus 229E and human coronavirus OC43). Other members of this family have since been identified, including SARS-CoV in 2003, HCoV NL63 in 2004, HKU1 in 2005, MERS-CoV in 2012, and SARS-CoV-2 (formerly known as 2019-nCoV) in 2019. Most of these have involved serious respiratory tract infections.