Coronavirus is not gone yet, let’s adhere to the protocols – Dr DaCosta

Dr DaCosta Aboagye, the leader of the Risk Communication for COVID-19 National Response Team, has cautioned the public against being complacent over the news that the infection rate has reduced.

Currently there are no record of COVID-19 cases in the North East, Savannah, Upper East, and Upper West regions.

The Greater Accra, Ashanti, Central, Eastern, and Western regions continue to lead with the highest number of active cases.

A total of 40,796 persons out of 42,993 confirmed cases have recovered from the virus, indicating an improvement in recovery rate from 89.5 per cent to 95.1 per cent in three weeks.

Dr Da Costa Aboagye, who is also the Director of Health Promotion, Ghana Health Service, in an interview with the Ghana News Agency, explained that the reduction in local infections or community spread was due to measures by the Government and stakeholders to ensure compliance with the safety protocols.

Despite the rapid reduction in the rate infections, he said the nation was at a critical stage in fighting the pandemic and called for intensified public education and community engagement for fear that citizens might lose guard on the safety protocols, thinking the fight was over.

“This is the time we have to intensify public education, community engagements like house-to-house education and make sure that every Ghanaian is adhering to the safety protocols, wearing of face masks, and regular washing of hands for at least 20 seconds with soap under running water”, he cautioned.

Dr Aboagye also advised the public to eat balanced diet especially from local foods to boost their 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.”

Dr Aboagye said the fight would be won within communities only if community members played their part to reduce transmission.