The opposition National Democratic Congress, NDC has insisted that the partial lockdown of Accra, Kumasi, Tema and Kasoa has now become needless.
According to a member of the NDC’s COVID-19 team, Dr. Grace Ayensu Dankwa the lockdown should have taken immediately when the president delievered his address on March 27, 20120 instead of the delayed implementation date.
Justifying why the partial lockdown has become needless, Dr Ayensu stated that because the implementation date delayed, it gave people possibly infected with COVID-19 to leave the epicentres.
“It was actually a lockdown of the people in the geographical area. So in other words, it was more like we wanted to quarantine all the people in Accra. So you make an announcement two days, three days that you are going to lockdown Accra on Monday and what happened was more of what we predicted–the human beings that we were sort of concerned about, most of them left the area to other regions in the country…The way this lockdown happened we think it has backfired in the sense that, the lockdown was not a geographical lockdown,” she argued. on Accra based radio station, Citi FM’s Eyewitness news.
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President Nana Akufo-Addo on March 27, 2020 declared a partial lockdown of Accra and Kumasi effective 1 am on Monday, March 30, 2020.
The lockdown which affects Accra, Tema and Kumasi will last for two weeks.
“Prevailing circumstances mean that stricter measures have to be put in place to contain and halt the spread of the virus within our country, especially in Accra, Tema, Kasoa and Kumasi, which have been identified by the Ghana Health Service as the ‘hotspots’ of the infections. In doing this, we cannot afford to copy blindly, and do all the things some other well-developed countries are doing. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to this pandemic. We have a unique situation in our country, and we must take it into account in dealing with the disease, whilst meeting all the six (6) key WHO guidelines on the most effective ways of combating the pandemic. Even though it may be said that the number of our infections is still, relatively, low, if we act now purposefully, we have a chance of preventing an escalation of our numbers.”
“…effective 1 am on Monday, 30th March, some forty-eight hours from now, I have imposed, pursuant to the powers granted the President of the Republic, under the Imposition of Restrictions Act, 2020 (Act 1012), restrictions on movement of persons in the Greater Accra Metropolitan Area (GAMA, which includes Awutu Senya East), and the Greater Kumasi Metropolitan Area and contiguous districts, for a period of two (2) weeks, subject to review. It will give us the opportunity to try to halt the spread of the virus, and scale-up effectively contact tracing of persons who have come into contact with infected persons, test them for the virus, and, if necessary, quarantine and isolate them for treatment, should they prove to have the virus,” he added.
