Ban flights from coronavirus hotspot countries – Minority to Govt

The Minority in Parliament has asked the Government of Ghana to place a ban on flights from COVID-19 hotspot countries.

Ranking Member on the Health Committee, Kwabena Mintah Akandoh speaking at a press conference in Accra on Sunday, May 2 said “We recommend that government like its counterparts elsewhere, must place a temporary ban on flights from Covid-19 hotspot countries until the situation in those areas improves.”

Meanwhile, the Government of Ghana has been told to handle the people of India and all other persons who travel to and from India with a stricter protocol.

This follows the upwelling in the number of coronavirus cases in that part of the world.

Professor at the University of Ghana, and Director of the West African Center for Cell Biology of Infectious Pathogens, Gordon Akanzuwine Awandare, who made the proposal on the Key Points on TV3 Saturday, May 1 said the measures should, however, not include a travel ban to India.

“I think that we cannot pretend that now every country is safe and we should treat every country the same.

“If you look at one of the lessons that we will all learn from this pandemic is that when you delay taking action you will always pay for it. If we had all taken steps initially to restrict travel from China for just a month we may have saved the world this trouble.

“So, I really don’t think we should pretend that we can continue to allow the same free access from India and from Brazil,” he told the host of the programme Abena Tabi.

He added “I am not comfortable with banning flights from any particular country but we have to put the restriction in place. I was hearing that they were planning to impose a mandatory quarantine on people who come from those countries. I hope that is done.

“You cannot treat every country the same, it is the reality. If you do that it will catch up with you. One of the reasons why we had the huge surge in January is that sat down and saw new variants popping up in the UK and we didn’t take any steps to regulate the entry of people from the UK or tracking the infections coming from the UK.

“By the time we woke up the UK variant had taken over the country. So we cannot do the same thing, we have to put some restrictions in place. I am not saying ban flights from India but we have to treat them with a different protocol.”

The International media have reported that a second wave of the virus is ravaging parts of India, with 386,452 new cases reported on Friday – the biggest one-day increase on record for any country.

The BBC reported that there were another 3,500 deaths nationwide and nearly 400 in Delhi – a record for the capital.

The total number of infections in the country has now passed 18 million.

The first consignment of emergency medical supplies from the US arrived on Friday, part of what the White House has said will be more than $100m (£72m) worth of support.

But oxygen supplies and hospital beds remain in desperately short supply across India, with relatives of Covid patients pleading on social media for help.

One senior Delhi police officer said that people were having to cremate family members in crematoriums not designated to take victims of Covid-19.

“That’s why we suggested more crematoriums should be set up,” the officer told the NDTV news channel.