Coronavirus: We are at a critical stage, don't think the infection is over - Dr Da Costa warns

The leader of the Risk Communication for COVID-19 National Response Team, Dr. Da Costa Aboagye, has cautioned Ghanaians not to be complacent over reports that infection rate has reduced rapidly.

Currently, there are no recorded COVID-19 cases in the North East, Savannah, Upper East, and Upper West Regions, and I charge their residents to do everything possible to maintain that situation. Greater Accra, Ashanti, Central, Eastern, and Western continue to be the Regions with the highest number of active cases.

Thus far, a total of forty thousand, five hundred and sixty-seven (40,567) persons have recovered from the virus. This means our recovery rate has improved from eighty-nine-point five percent (89.5%) to ninety-five-point one percent (95.1%) in three weeks.

Dr. Da Costa Aboagye explained that the reduction in the local infections [community spreads] is as a result of the measures put in place by the government, Ghana Health Service, Ministry of Health as well as the various stakeholders like the media and compliance of safety protocols by Ghanaians.

But according to the Director of Health Promotion, in spite of the rapid reduction in the rate of COVID-19 infection, the nation is at the critical stage in the fight against the pandemic as it rather calls for an intensified public education and community engagement for fear that citizens might lose their guard on the safety protocols, thinking the fight is over and won.

“The reason why I said we have reached the critical stage in the fight against the COVID-19 is that as a country, this is the time that we have to see the need to intensify public education, community engagement like house-to-house education and make sure that every Ghanaian is adhering to the safety protocols; wearing of the face masks, regular washing of hands of at least 20 seconds with soap under running water”, he cautioned.

He maintained that the time for every Ghanaians to eat a well-balanced diet especially from the local foods is now as it is part of the means to boost the immune system.

“This is the time that every Ghanaian should eat well-balanced diet from local foods and to adhere to all the preventive measure to avoid what we call the second wave. We should not be complacent that the infection rate is reducing and so we will not comply with the safety protocols; we should not be complacent”, he cautioned.

He further sounded some caution to Ghanaians not to think that there is no more Covid-19 infection in the country, and so they will go to work without their face masks and other needed protocols in place.

“If you are leaving your homes, please wear your face masks because it is a law to wear them and the police are still enforcing that law. We have gotten to a point in the fight against the virus where the citizens have to help us to eradicate the infection from the country entirely as we continue to ease some of the restrictions”.

“If we don’t comply with the safety protocols, the infection rate will shoot up because we have seen a similar situation in other countries and so the media should use their platforms to help us the risk communication and community engagement team to continue to make Ghanaians aware that we have reached a critical stage in the fight against COVID-19," he urged.

He was of the firm belief that “the fight will be won within communities because of community spread and so, in reducing community transmission, you need community members to do what they are expected to do for the infection to be curtailed.”