WE CAN NO LONGER AFFORD TO BE CARELESS ABOUT THE LINGERING COVID-19 THREAT
The Ghanaian Times of Thursday, 14 January 2021 alerted us to the naked truth regarding the COVID-19 pandemic threat to life and work as well as our national development benchmarks.
As we would recall, during the last several public statements that the President, His Excellency, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, had been making, the nation’s attention was drawn repeatedly to that fact, which is that, while we go about our normal duties, an enemy in the form of COVOD-19 stalks us. And as the state-owned daily pointed out, active cases have now hit 1,330, with 109 new cases recorded in the country on January 8, 2021.
The report adds that these new cases have come from four out of our sixteen regions, according to data released from the Ghana Health Services (GHS) website.
Evidence of our collective naiveté
That we seem to have forgotten how dreaded the pandemic is, is evident in the fact that the large informal sector which was making quite a fortune out of selling sanitizers on the streets have folded up business, with only the producers of the nose masks moderately visible on our markets and streets.
Worse still is the fact that, even in established businesses and institutions including state-owned ones, the initial presence of Veronica buckets filled with water and soaps and sanitizers is fading. That also appears to be the same picture on our markets.
As for the operators of public transport, it is far worse, with the delinquents being the drivers and their assistants.
Again, as the President has hinted, effective and adequate strategies that have been put in place by the government for economic activity and sustenance of national developmental agenda must be allowed to work in tandem with global World Health Organisation WHO and Ghana Health Service GHS protocols.
That means that we must not compromise on personal and collective alertness, care, and concern in fighting the pandemic at any level, whether it is the markets and streets, educational and health institutions or churches, mosques, and workplaces.
Unnecessary risks
It is important for us to understand that it is a result of our careful and collective cooperation and commitment to fight the disease that enabled our dedicated, committed, and hardworking medical personnel to deliver, inputting Ghana among the first in the fight against the pandemic at a global level.
Additionally, the breakthrough in science that has culminated in the generation of potent vaccines to fight the pandemic, while that is plausible and refreshing, must not also be a motivation on our part for taking unnecessary risks, when we leave home or the community for work or visit.
Pragmatism
As the President has already pointed out, the only way out of the situation in our circumstances as a developing nation is for us to apply a double-edged strategy of hard work and protection of ourselves and our environment, in striving to attain our national goals.
And we need to strive in attaining those objectives because we cannot fold up and expect aid from other countries that themselves are under pressure to assists their citizen’s businesses to recover.
Monitoring
So that we do not slide back from our gains made in the last four years, we at the Daily Statesman would urge the government to ignite its agencies of monitoring at all levels to hit the streets, workplaces, markets, and religious places of worship to assist with compliance.
At this point, however, we can only go forward in our march for peace and prosperity as we responsibly put our shoulders collectively to the wheel, in contributing to improving lives and livelihoods through rigid adherence to the safety protocols.
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