The Osun State Government has come out to say that it is still committed to enforcing the total lockdown of the state to curb the spread of the deadly virus in the country.

In a recent statement signed by the Secretary to the State Government, Prince Wole Oyebamiji revealed that Osun has not relaxed the State-wide lockdown and the government has not granted exemptions for any form of the congregation, be it Easter or Juma’at prayers.

According to Prince Wole, Osun residents, especially religious leaders should continue cooperating with the government in it strives to defeat the notorious disease.

He added that obeying regulations is of utmost importance during these trying times.

His words, “The State-wide lockdown is a two-week order at the first instance, after which the government will review the battle against the pandemic.

“All heads of religious organisations, social associations, citizens and residents are therefore implored to continue to cooperate with the government in this fight by obeying all the necessary regulations and emergency orders”.

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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.