Coronavirus locking us down gradually – Doctor reveals

Medical health professional at the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital has asserted that with the behaviour of Ghanaians towards the adherence to safety protocols and the current COVID-19 situation, the country will see another lockdown.

Dr. Joojo Nyamekye, speaking in an interview on the Happy Morning Show hosted by Samuel Eshun on Happy 98.9 FM said, “I think gradually, coronavirus is locking us down.”

He noted that the Ghana situation with regard to the COVID-19 fight has dampened the spirits of medical personnel. “Our morale is a bit low because we have seen the spread of the virus firsthand and how health workers are being infected.”

According to him, the current demand and supply ratio of health workers to patients is on a downward spiral because of the high number of medical staff being infected by the virus. “Our recorded cases are increasing and the workforce is reducing,” he noted.

The doctor personally believes the government eased restrictions implemented to fight the COVID-19 pandemic prematurely. “We should have eased our restrictions gradually and with some caution,” he said.

Dr. Nyamekye who was also part of the team of doctors who expressed their objection to the electoral commission’s mass registration exercise noted that “We wrote our first petition but it was not regarded. The registration went on and safety protocols were disregarded.”

“We saw images and footages of people crowded at registration centres. Some were not wearing facemasks, we did not see running water and soap for handwashing. We didn’t see sanitizers for cleaning biometric machines. Because Ghanaians are stubborn we wrote a second letter.”

The second letter addressed to the Electoral Commission dated July 6, 2020, was titled, ‘Concerns about a surge in new COVID-19 cases and mortalities resulting from the mass registration exercise’. He noted that officially, they have not received any response from the electoral commission.

He cautioned the EC that if they do not properly check their activities and allow things to get out of hand, they will be blamed and not the bodies they consulted prior to the start of the registration exercise.

Currently, a number of public and private intuitions including hospitals in the country have been shut down because of COVID-19 cases being recorded amongst staff.

As at today, Ghana has recorded 22,822 cases of COVID-19 with 17,564 recoveries. Unfortunately, 129 Ghanaians have lost their lives to the pandemic.