Coronavirus: Call for discipline not enough, add sanctions – Elias Sory to Akufo-Addo

A former Director-General of the Ghana Health Service, Dr Elias Sory has urged government to attach sanctions to the call for discipline among Ghanaians in the wake of coronavirus pandemic.

According to him, the President’s call for discipline as the lockdown is lifted in Accra and Kumasi will not achieve the intended results if no sanctions are attached.

“If we call for discipline and we don’t add sanctions, we won’t go anywhere. We should be adding sanctions,” he told Starr News Monday.

He also observed that a lockdown maybe not be the solution out of the virus spread for Ghana.

Meanwhile, the Akuapem North Municipal Assembly has recorded two confirmed cases of coronavirus today Monday, April 20, 2020.

Starrfm.com.gh has gathered that the two are a 59-year-old woman who returned to the country on March 20, 2020, and resides in Amanokrom.

The second case is also a 45-year-Old woman who returned to the country on March 19, 2020, and lives in Akropong.

Currently, the medical team are on grounds carrying out contact tracing exercise.



The Municipal Chief Executive for Akuapem North, Dennis Miracle Aboagye who is the chairman of the Municipal Public Health Emergency Committee confirmed the incident.

“It is true but these two cases were both imported. They are not community spread. They are part of the enhanced contact tracing that Ghana Health Service is doing. Those who came into the country before the mandatory quarantine at the Airport they were also being contacted for testing so this is positive results from that exercise,” The MCE told Starr News’ Eastern Regional Correspondent Kojo Ansah.

The MCE allayed fears of residents that the medical team is on top of the situation to ensure that there are no community infections.

Akuapem North Municipal Assembly is part of four Municipal and District Assemblies sharing boundaries in the Eastern Region that formed an alliance to prevent the spread of Coronavirus to their jurisdictions.

The other Assemblies are New Jauben South, Akuapem South and Okere.

The Municipal/District Public Health Emergency Committees together with the Municipal/District Security Councils of these four (4) Assemblies issued a joint directive Monday, March 30, 2020, which took effect Tuesday, 31st March 2020 at 6:00 am.

The directive led to the erection of fifteen (15) Barriers/checkpoints in the four municipalities including inter-highway roads.

Additionally, mandatory temperature checks have been conducted by health workers strategically positioned at Checkpoints on persons entering any of the municipalities.

The statement directed that Taxi drivers would be allowed to pick only three passengers, while commercial Urvan buses reduce the number of passengers drastically.

Hotels and Guesthouses in the four municipalities were directed to furnish with details of all visitors from March 29, 2020.

Currently, the directives are being reviewed by the Assemblies.

Ghana has recorded a total of 1042 confirmed cases of coronavirus after testing a total of 68,591 samples as of April 19, 2020.

Out of the confirmed cases, Eastern region has recorded 51 Cases with one case recorded in Fanteakwa North whereas the rest are among railway construction workers in Lower Manya Krobo municipality.