Stay away from mass swimming – Swimming coach advises

The head coach of the national swimming team, Kojo Abbew Jackson has cautioned Ghanaians against mass swimming amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The virus and its ripple effect has culminated in health experts advising people against mass gatherings.

In Ghana, only a gathering with a membership of 100 or less is allowed to hold.

Speaking to www.ghanaweb.com after a one-day seminar on swimming at the Accra Sports Stadium, Kojo Abbew Jackson said that while the swimming pools themselves are low-risk avenues for the contraction of the virus, the immediate environment of the pools could pose threat to people.

He urged swimming coaches to ensure that none of the safety protocols are breached by people who come to patronize their facilities.

“The pool itself is not dangerous. The swimming pool itself is a low-risk area. The risk are the axillaries, the training rooms and generally having a number of people congregating at a specific area so those are the problems. In terms of the swimmers, I believe we should protect them”.

“You should respect the protocols. We should respect social distancing. You should remember that there are places of high risk. We should avoid them if possible. It’s an exercise and people want to swim to exercise but if people want to do it, they should ensure social distancing”, he said.

Touching on the program, Abbew was impressed with how everything panned out. “It’s a day that we celebrate the things that we do and in Ghana, we decided to deal with learn to swim, safety and training during the Covid-19 era. All in all, it was a useful day and we had fun”, he said.

The World Aquatic Day is an initiative of the World Governing Body of Swimming called F.I.N.A and Ghana has been marking it since 2018.