Abstract
The traditional market has specific features, the impact of which may impede compliance with the Covid-19 safety protocols and make the market an of Covid-19 pandemic. This paper described compliance with Covid-19 safety protocols and the need to upgrade the traditional market into modern markets. The purpose is to draw the attention of the stakeholders to the need to upgrade the traditional markets so as to facilitate compliance with the Covid-19 safety protocols and eliminate resurgence of the pandemic. The study was a prospective, comparative analysis of compliance with Covid-19 safety protocols in the Traditional Markets and Modern Markets (MM) in Ekiti State, Southwest Nigeria. The results showed that the traditional markets were majorly the open-air types with propensity for overcrowding, clustering and long business hours. The compliance scores across all the Covid-19 safety protocols and especially physical distancing were very poor in the traditional markets compared with the modern markets. There is therefore the need to upgrade the traditional markets to modern markets with a view to facilitate compliance with the Covid-19 safety protocols and suppress resurgence of the pandemic in Ekiti State, Southwest Nigeria.
Highlights
Of recent, no other disease has shocked the global community to the marrow as the novel Covid-19 pandemic
In our own setting, there was no comparative study of the Traditional Market (TM) and Modern Markets (MM) for Covid-19 incidence, observation has shown that compliance with the Covid-19 safety protocols especially physical distancing in the Traditional Markets (TM) is inconsistent compared with MM
Study Setting This was an observational report of compliance with Covid-19 safety protocols at the traditional markets in Ekiti State, Southwest, Nigeria
Summary
No other disease has shocked the global community to the marrow as the novel Covid-19 pandemic. As of 26 September 2020, about 32 million cases including 989,728 deaths have been reported worldwide Center (2020). It was irst reported in Wuhan city, China, in 2019 and was declared a pandemic by the Organization (2020b) on 11 March 2020. Reports from China showed that some of the earliest known cases of Covid-19 were traced to the traditional food market. According to the Organization (2020a), some of the earliest known cases of Covid-19 had a link to a wholesale food market in Wuhan city, China and many of the initial patients were stall owners, market employees, or regular visitors to this market. It is possible that these, coupled with other factors might have raised the bar of Covid-19 infection in the TM above that in the MM
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