The OneGhana Movement applauds the update on the Coronavirus situation provided by the President of the Republic; as well as the preventive measures and advisories put in place by the government as a response to the Coronavirus pandemic spread in our nation.
At the first update by the President only days earlier, the nation had officially recorded no case of Covid-19. By the second national update on Sunday 15th March 2020; however, six (6) cases of Covid-19 had been officially confirmed and all the cases wereimported by individuals who had arrived in Ghana from other countries.
We recognize that this indicates escalation and heightens the risk of community infections and hereby make the following recommendations to augment actions prior taken:
- Ban flights from countries affected with 100+ cases of Covid-19 including transits through such countries. All cases have been imported hence the need for a drastic approach to cut more imports.
- We appreciate the directive for suspected persons entering the jurisdiction to self-quarantine but trust it will be optimal to have stronger supervision of such persons. We therefore request that the protocols for self-quarantining be not only made available at ports of entry but publicly made available to all Ghanaians. It should also include a mandatory sharing of the self-quarantining information by port operators and probable patients to at least 5 family and friends acting as guarantors who will undertake to co-supervise, monitor and report compliance to self-quarantine protocols. Their reports must be filed every other day on a portal set up as part of the Government COVID-19 online engagements.
- Institute punitive provisions against persons and guarantors who fail to follow self-quarantine procedures. We demand that no exceptions by way of “Ghana’s Big-Manism Syndrome” should be entertained whatsoever in the implementation of all travel and self-quarantine protocols.
- Empower and resource qualified private laboratories and diagnostic centres to test cases and ease congestion on the Noguchi Memorial Institute and the Kumasi Centre for Collaborative Research. This may include a policy directive, provision of testing kits and swift training of personnel to assist. Our ability to test more Ghanaians speedily will better position Ghana combat the virus.
- It is a known fact that the facilities in most of our senior high schools are unhygienic, ill resourced and in many cases challenged with the free flow of water. We humbly demand that government immediately deploys resources to adequately refurbish the bathroom and water supply facilities of SHS institutions to ensure strict adherence to hygienic and precautionary measures for the final year SHS students.
- Government must immediately deploy its sanitation officers to inspect and ensure that public places including public offices, restaurants, drinking pubs etc. are well equipped with the hand hygiene facilities required and shutdown facilities that remain sub-optimal.
- We urge the immediate deployment of accurate public messaging that reassures and invokes public confidence and trust while encouraging civic duty and responsibility to observe social distancing; general hygiene and sanitation; as well as the cooperation with the containment measures by the experts.
- We advise that government favourably reviews and be guided by the South Korean containment strategy which worked, and consider the deployment of counter terrorism measure templates in the containment strategy as is being employed in Israel.
OneGhana, Honour the Pledge!
Signed: Emily Kanyir Nyuur
Ag. Executive Director
0244 897584