Ghana's coronavirus fight and Carlos Ahenkorah's recovery letter

One good thing about COVID is that it requires no evangelist. Just as should be done to those with no belief in God, leave the doubters be. In just a little time, the virus will reveal itself to them. All a matter of small time.

First, it started with Trump spewing uncommon sense and superintending over the deaths of close 130,000 Americans. What he called the Chinese virus acquired American citizenship. He now goes around wearing masks; something he never did even at the peak of infections.

Then followed Boris BJ Johnson who in typical English style thought the British brain was finer than any other and so when other countries were locking down, he went round preaching herd immunity much against what immunology as a science was saying. Herd immunity in the context of COVID was another version survival of the fittest. And it was insensitive for a government to preach this and sit back to watch its citizens die. Well, it was economy over lives for them. In no time, COVID visited the prime minister and by the time he returned from his near-death hospital admission, he sounded more empathetic and conscientious.

Quite easily the most disbelieving of all national leaders, Brazil’s President Bosnero campaigned against lockdowns and the science behind COVID interventions. He was seen in crowded protests and actively broke all COVID rules. It was only a matter of time. He has tested positive for COVID and is currently at the mercy of the virus.

Sadly, it is abundantly clear now that whoever advises the government of Ghana downplayed the seriousness of COVID to the president. How we started so well but seem to have allowed the virus run ahead of us over the last few weeks remains a mystery. Well, it probably isn’t much of a mystery looking at recent happenings and what complacency caused us to do. We battered prudent management for politics. The virus has reached the presidency and its wings. I pray this sends a strong signal to those who matter. Of the many lingering issues, I’m particularly worried about two things:

1. This letter signed by the Director-General of the Ghana health service is just interesting. Ghana scrapped the double negative testing regime some weeks ago and discharged patients en mass from the isolation centres. I remember the uproar it caused. It was, however, welcoming news as latest evidence pointed to the needlessness of that protocol. Carlos Ahenkorah having behaved as recklessly as he did and exposing innocent people to the virus still got two double negative tests performed on him when that had been scrapped for the average Ghanaian.

And even worse, the Director-General for the Ghana health service found it okay to append his signature to a letter announcing this animal farm display to Ghanaians. Snowball and Napoleon would both have attacked Mr Jones for this. Does every patient get a congratulatory letter? What’s the message to the 1000s of patients who were rightfully discharged without a second test and those to be discharged in future? And where is the respect for taxpayer who funds these tests? Wherein lies the motivation for health workers who are now being refused mass and repeat testing. You’ll wonder what runs through their minds as they do these things...

2. Reopening secondary schools with poor logistical supply and planning:

Medical advice was really not against the reopening of schools. The virus isn’t going to vanish anytime soon and a potent vaccine is still quite a distant discovery. So, schools ought to open but to think these children were sent to school without a resident health professional equipped with PPE in each school is just interesting. I personally do not hold the teachers responsible for what happened at KNUST SHS. All we needed to have done in these circumstances would have been to have a nurse attached to each school. Teachers are not medics.

They are mostly middle-aged people with their own underlying medical issues. They should not be expected to go out of their way risking their lives to touch sick students in these COVID times without protection. All they could have done in that circumstance would have been to call an ambulance but if you have ever had to call an ambulance in Ghana, you’ll appreciate that this is probably no solution at all...

The headmistress has just been thrown under the bus for a systemic problem created right from the top of our educational administration. It’d have been an extraordinary feat of improvise if the teachers touched the boy or even put him in their own vehicles but deciding not to be extraordinary is no punishable crime. The system has to be functional for even the least among us in order to allow humans remain human and not supermen/women. It’s too late to ask the children to return home though. It’ll be greater risk to the nation at large.

We cannot afford to test all of them so letting them go home exposes people in the community. These children are generally out of the risk group and will fare fairly better than the general populace. Risk communication efforts will have to be improved with better reassurance plans for parents. It’s still not too late to improve the logistics situation in the schools.

Finally, at the risk of sounding like a bad prophet rejoicing over the coming-to-pass of a negative prophecy, we are still awaiting an apology from all the many social media Africanists who bastardized calls for proper trials of the Madagascan potion. Madagascar is currently under lockdown and I suppose their potion is too. Good things can come from Africa but these issues should not be argued on emotional sentiments. It’s a matter of due diligence. In future, we’ll learn to follow legitimate processes in our advocacy.