Four hundred and seventy one people died in Yobe State in the last three weeks, the state task force on COVID-19 made the revelation yesterday.

The Yobe State Commissioner for Health, Dr. Muhammad Lawan Gana, who is also vice chairman of the state committee on COVID-19, said those that died were mostly elderly people.

He added that the total of 471 was put together between the last week of April and the second week of May.

According to the commissioner, the casualties were recorded in Potiskum, which is the business capital of Yobe State, Nguru, Gashu’a and Damaturu the state capital.

Like in Kano, Jigawa, Bauchi and Borno, there has been an outcry across Yobe State over an increased number of deaths through various illnesses. Though some locals, medical experts and opinion moulders have over the past weeks insisted that most of the deaths being recorded in the northwest and northeast could be attributed to the ravaging COVID-19.

But in most cases, government officials attributed the development to other factors such as malaria, heat wave and hypertension and ruled out the possibility of coronavirus.

Yobe State shares an international boundary with the Republic of Niger to the North, Jigawa and Bauchi States to the West, Borno State to the East as well as Gombe and Borno to the South.

The media had reported that between the second week of April and early May, over 200 people died in Kano, over 100 in Hadejia LGA of Jigawa and over 150 in Bauchi.