A health economist and a security analyst have expressed misgivings over the President’s decision to lift the three-week partial lockdown of Greater Accra and Greater Kumasi.
They claim that the decision by the President to lift the partial lockdown of Accra and Kumasi is a dangerous gamble that could backfire and urged him to extend the lockdown in parts of the country as ending it would cause more harm than good.
They are Dr Gordon Abeka-Nkrumah, a health economist and Adib Saani, a security analyst, who appealed to the President not to heed to calls for the lifting of the directive as the time was not right.
President Nana Akufo-Addo on Sunday announced the lifting of the three-week lockdown on Greater Accra and Kumasi, with effect from April 20, however, stated all other social distancing measures were still in place with churches, educational institutions both public and private would still remain shut.
“The decision to enforce the three-week lockdown was taken to give the government the opportunity to try to contain the spread of the virus, scale-up effectively and efficiently tracing of persons who had come into contact with infected persons, test them for the virus, and quarantine those who tested positive and isolate them for treatment.
“The decision has been taken through the issuance of another executive instrument to extend the restriction of movements in the Greater Accra Metropolitan Area and Kasoa and the Greater Kumasi Metropolitan Area and its contiguous districts by one more week beginning 1 am on Monday the 13th of April, subject to review,” President Akufo-Addo stressed.
The President last week, extended the initial two-week lockdown he imposed on the areas and that ended April 19.
But in a statement, Mr Saani said the President’s decision could lead to peak mortality in the next few days and insisted that almost all world leaders including US President Donald Trump and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who ignored World Health Organisation warnings, were licking their wounds today, besides, how effective and efficient would enforcing the social distancing protocols be?
“I do appreciate the untold economic and social hardship the lockdown is posing to the ordinary Ghanaian but we are in desperate times and sometimes draconian measures would have to be adopted for the greater good of public health and safety,” he noted.
According to Dr Abeka-Nkrumah, removing the restriction of movements would affect progress the country had made so far in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic as the country was currently at a critical stage in the fight.
“Lockdowns have economic gradients, the best we can do is to make sure we get people to stay home in the next week or two, we ramp up tests, isolate people and encourage wearing of masks we can then come out.
“If we don’t do that and we joke, what will happen, we may go back again and lockdown entirely in a way we probably cannot handle because we need to get firm and get this to work,” Dr Abeka-Nkrumah warned.
Ghana’s case count of the coronavirus currently stands at 1,042 with 99 recoveries and 9 deaths.
-starrfmonline.com/ghanaweb.com
