Commuters still adamant to observing Coronavirus protocols

Most commuters in the Central Business District of Accra are adamant to observing the Covid-19 safety protocols despite the upsurge in cases.

A Ghana News Agency monitoring at the weekend brought to the fore the lackadaisical attitude towards the pandemic by the people, with a few acknowledging the upsurge in active cases, yet were unwilling to obey the safety directives.

Edmund Donkor, a mobile money vendor, said he had stopped observing the safety protocols for some time now adding: “Everybody is healthy and I have not heard of anyone going down with covid-19 in my vicinity. I, therefore, do not feel threatened at all.”

He said he believed that if more awareness was created on the pandemic it would prompt the citizenry to get serious with observing the precautionary measures.

Mr Kwabena Asante, a watch repairer, said: “We do not even believe in the existence of the pandemic because so far, since the beginning of its spread, we have all been here, healthy, and have not heard of any of our colleagues or their families getting infected."

He said the only cases he had heard of concerned some prominent people in society and not the ordinary citizen adding: “It’s a big man’s disease”.

Mr Asante, however, noted that he wore the nose mask when in a public transport, but took it off immediately he alighted.

Jonathan Tetteh, who engages in the commercial motorbike transport business (Okada), said he and his colleagues were healthy and did not believe there was much of a problem.

James Ahenkora, a dealer in mobile phone accessories, said he felt threatened by the second wave because a disease that had no cure was not to be taken lightly.

“I know COVID-19 is a dreaded disease and serious with regard to everything I have heard about it, but I haven’t experienced it and also do not know anyone who has,” he said.

Mr Ahenkora said he had his hand sanitizer, wore his face mask all the time and observed the anti-COVID-19 protocols as much as possible.

He, however, called for increased education because he believed many people did not know of the increase in infections.

A group of drivers who appeared not bothered about the need to social distant and wear their masks, said they were not sure the pandemic existed and that God saw them through the first wave and He would protect them during the second wave.

“If you are a commercial driver and you wear a mask, I don’t even think anyone would join your car. There is no way you can effectively call your passengers on board if this mask is covering your mouth,” one of them, who refused to mention his name, said amidst laughter from his colleagues.

Current statistics from the Ghana Health Service indicate that Ghana now has 1,404 active cases, and 56,981 confirmed cases since the beginning of the pandemic.

The country’s death toll is 341 with 55,236 recoveries.

With an upsurge in COVID-19 cases world-wide and the current discovery of a new strain of the virus, a number of countries are strengthening and increasing measures to combat the pandemic.

The Ghana Medical Association has warned of a potential rise in infections as treatment centres are overstretched.