COVID: Ghanaians urged to keep strictly to protocols as new infections expose govt’s lack of plan

Ghanaians have been charged to renew their observation of the Covid-19 protocols to ensure personal safety in the face of the increasing rate of infections.

Ranking Member of the Health Committee in Parliament, Mr. Kwabena Mintah Akando who made the call warned that government’s lack of serious plan to deal with the new wave demands Ghanaians to take their destinies into their own hands.

He warned that the new variant of the virus is like wildfire and Ghana could well be experiencing a third wave.

“Let us take the COVID protocols seriously and adhere to them because there is no serious plan in place for now.”

“We have consistently been drawing government’s attention that we must conduct more testing and vaccination but to no avail,” he said.

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The Juaboso legislator gave the warning in Parliament when he engaged the media on Tuesday on the increasing daily rate of infections.

He said, “Between 4^th July and 12^th July, the rate of infection has moved to about 82%; from 250 to about 455 daily confirmed cases.”

“If you look at the data within the period, on 4^th July total infection was around 1,573 and jumped significantly to 2,247 confirmed cases as at 12^th July, 2021. This is quite alarming.”

Mr. Akandoh called on President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to resume his weekly address to the nation on the COVID-19 pandemic.

This, he said, has become imperative in view of the recent escalation in the infection rate, which has seen the number of cases jump exponentially in just a week.

He indicated the need for government to inform Ghanaians of the fresh measures it is taking to halt the spread and described as unfortunate the new cases being recorded and the government’s apparent state of confusion on what to do.

The Ranking noted that the only effective way to bring down the rate of infection of the virus is to conduct mass vaccination.

Government, he said, had one year to prepare, procure and deploy the vaccination with plans to deploy not less than 7.9 million doses of vaccines.

He lamented, however, that to date the government has been able to vaccinate just about a million people, which is very inadequate considering the new infection rate.

According to him, more worrying is government’s lack of commitment to deploy full-scale vaccination and testing.

“As the ranking member on the Parliamentary Select Committee on Health, if you ask me when we are going to roll out the vaccination plan, the answer is I don’t know.”

“And worst of it is that the government has stopped testing completely so if a person is suspected of being infected, he would have to test all close relatives at a personal cost of not less than GH¢300 per person because there is no more government testing,” he said.

He argued that the lack of preparedness on the part of government has brought the country to this stage and therefore the state cannot turn around to tell the populace of an emergency situation.

Frontpageghana.com/Ghana