Be weary, we’re not free from coronavirus – Ghanaians warned

Information reaching Happy 98.9FM indicates that the COVID-19 outbreak will spread further, and this is in contrast with a statement from the Ghana Health Service (GHS) saying the “country’s case count has peaked”.

A representative from the GHS, Dr. Badu Sarkodie, in the regular press briefings on COVID-19 by the Ministry of Information and the GHS on Tuesday, 5th May, 2020 noted that Ghana has reached her peak of Covid-19 infection curve.

Senior Research Fellow at Ghana’s leading biomedical research institute which has been temporarily converted to a COVID-19 testing center, Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research (NMIMR), Dr. Kofi Bonney has said otherwise on Happy98.9FM.

In an interview on the Happy Morning show with Samuel Eshun, the researcher noted that the COVID-19 pandemic in Ghana will spread further because of its nature as a respiratory disease. “It will be difficult to limit the spread of the virus because of the disregard for Government’s directives aimed at achieving the aforementioned purpose.

According to him, the blatant disregard by Ghanaians with regard to the social distancing and regular washing of hands directive will cause problems and is in contrast with Director of Public Health at the GHS, Dr Ebenezer Badu Sarkodie’s statement during the Q&A segment of a Ministry of Information briefing on Ghana’s anti-Covid-19 efforts, “if we continue the way we are doing now – adhering to the various social distancing and adhering to the various individual preventive measures – these will let us come down from where we are”.

Some Ghanaians also agree to Dr. Bonney’s opposition noted that most citizens (even the highly educated) do not even use nose masks and do not adhere to most COVID-19 preventive measures.

Not ending there, Dr. Bonney revealed that COVID-19 samples received for testing by NMIMR has dropped from over 5,000 samples per day to around 1,500-2,000 which had helped the center clear some preexisting backlogs. The researcher attributed the drop in samples received to the reduced number of samples being received from contact tracing which is managed by the GHS on a daily basis and the increase of testing centers.

But an anonymous text message from someone who appears to have inside information about happenings at the NMIMR and GHS accused Dr. Bonney of being economical with the truth.

According to the individual, COVID-19 testing samples have reduced because Noguchi and the GHS have depleted their resources to test samples brought to the center and to conduct contact tracing respectively.

The person went on to warn Ghanaians not to relax on safety measures because the virus could spread exponentially than what is being let on.