Features
Effective containment of the COVID-19 spread
In December 2021, President Akufo-Addo gave an update on measures being taken to combat COVID-19 in Ghana. This was just before Christmas.
FOURTH WAVE
In view of the fourth wave of COVID-19 (Omicron variant) spreading over some countries in the world, it has become necessary for all governments to be careful in their approach as they take measures to curb the spread of the pandemic.
The latest wave is so dangerous that no chances should be taken because of the need to protect the health of people. The fourth wave has proved to be so dangerous that countries all over the world have imposed various forms of restrictions aimed at preventing people from moving into new countries and infecting people with the new virus.
AT KIA
At the Kotoka International Airport in Accra, some carriers of the latest wave of the virus had been detected and detained by officers operating on behalf of the Ghana Health Service.
The vigilance had been mounted to ensure that the country was protected from the latest wave of infection. As has been pointed out by President Akufo-Addo, any life lost under the pandemic cannot be recalled or retrieved and that explains why every effort must be made to ensure that all people in the country are adequately protected.
HARD WORK BY GOVERNMENT
The Government has worked hard to secure a large number of vaccines to be used in people in the country. In addition, more vaccines are still expected to be brought into the country to protect people against the pandemic.
While Government is doing all this, every person must have an open mind and be responsible enough to go for the vaccine, so that everyone in the country will be adequately protected.
POLITICAL GIMMICKS
The idea being harboured by certain people that vaccination against COVID-19 will make some people change their political orientation and vote for a particular political party in the country is very ridiculous and funny since no vaccinations in any part of the world is capable of achieving this.
Every vaccination in the world is meant to protect people from getting infection by one kind of disease or the other. When children for example are vaccinated against some killer diseases, the idea is to protect such children from being infected with those killer diseases. In the same way, the COVID-19 vaccination is meant to protect people from being infected with the virus which can result in death or hospitalisation and needless pain.
For this reason, everyone should see the vaccine as safe and go for the jab, so that protection against the disease can be guaranteed.
SCIENTIFIC FACT ABOUT VACCINE
Science has never proved that going for vaccine or injection will be able to change a person’s political orientation and make him or her vote for a particular party. Such misinformation should, therefore, be buried from the minds of people, so that the misinformation ongoing in certain circles will be done away with.
At the end of the day, it is the country as a whole that should move forward and develop to a higher level of progress so that Ghanaians can enjoy a better standard of living.
While efforts are being made to control immigrants from other parts of the world into the country as a way of controlling the pandemic in Ghana, every effort must be made to also control the borders in the country, so that these borders will not serve as sources of increasing numbers of those with the virus into the country. It is in the light of this that the various borders of the country will have to be rigidly controlled and regulated in a manner that will prevent needless influx of infected people into the country.
AVOIDING WASTE OF RESOURCES
When more people are infected, it means that the State will have to spend more resources to isolate and treat such people. However, if we are able to reduce the influx of infected people, some resources can be saved and utilised in some sectors of the economy for the welfare of all Ghanaians.
CLOSURE OF BORDERS
Thus, painful as it is, the country’s borders must remain closed in the interest of the majority of Ghanaians in the country. Those along the borders must, therefore, bear with us so that we can all be protected against the virus.
It is good that Government and the Ghana Health Service are not concerned only about fighting against the COVID-19 pandemic and preventing it from spreading in the country.
NATIONAL VACCINATION INSTITUTE
The decision by Government to establish a National Vaccination Institute to produce COVID-19 vaccines for the country is a well thought-through measure that will help Ghana mount a solid fight against the pandemic.
If Ghana is able to produce its own vaccines for the people, it will bring about a number of advantages.
ADVANTAGES
In the first place, the vaccines to fight COVID-19 can be produced in large quantities for the people of Ghana. Secondly, Ghana will serve as an exporter of such vaccines to other countries in Africa and other parts of the world, bringing about the needed foreign exchange for the country. Thirdly, the rest of the world will have great respect for the country and realise that after all, Ghana is among the group of countries fighting hard to protect its own people instead of always depending on others for the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.
Since Government has put in adequate measures to fight the disease, it is important for everyone to support these measures, so that people and others in the Republic shall be adequately protected.
MOVING FORWARD
Let us move forward in support of these measures as a way of establishing Ghana as a great State in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.
Contact email/ahatsApp of author:
Pradmat2013@gmail.com (0553318911)
BY DR KOFI AMPONSAH-BEDIAKO
One of the issues we have been grappling with as a nation is corruption, and it has had such a devastating effect on our national development. I have been convinced that until morality becomes the foundation upon which our governance system is built, we can never go forward as a nation.
Our traditional practices, which have shaped our cultural beliefs, have always espoused values that have kept us along the straight and the narrow and have preserved our societies since ancient times.
These are values that frown on negative habits like stealing, cheating, greediness, selfishness, etc. Our grandparents have told us stories of societies where stealing was regarded as so shameful that offenders, when caught, have on a number of instances committed suicide.
In fact, my mother told me of a story where a man who was living in the same village as her mother (my grandmother), after having been caught stealing a neighbour’s cockerel, out of shame committed suicide on a mango tree. Those were the days that shameful acts were an abomination.
Tegare worship, a traditional spiritual worship during which the spirit possesses the Tegare Priest and begins to reveal secrets, was one of the means by which the society upheld African values in the days of my grandmother and the early childhood days of my mother.
Those were the days when the fear of being killed by Tegare prevented people from engaging in anti-social vices. These days, people sleeping with other people’s wives are not uncommon.
These wrongful behaviour was not countenanced at all by Tegare. One was likely going to lose his life on days that Tegare operates, and so unhealthy habits like coveting your neighbour’s wife was a taboo.
Stealing of other people’s farm produce, for instance, could mean certain death or incapacitation of the whole or part of the body in the full glare of everybody. People realised that there were consequences for wrongdoing, and this went a long way to motivate the society to adhere to right values.
Imagine a President being sworn into office and whoever administers the oath says, “Please say this after me: I, Mr. …., do solemnly swear by God, the spirits of my ancestors and the spirits ruling in Ghana, that should I engage in corrupt acts, may I and my family become crippled, may madness become entrenched in my family, may incurable sicknesses and diseases be my portion and that of my family, both immediate and extended.”
Can you imagine a situation where a few weeks afterwards the President goes to engage in corrupt acts and we hear of his sudden demise or incapacitation and confessing that he engaged in corrupt acts before passing or before the incapacitation—and the effect it will have on his successor? I believe we have to critically examine this option to curb corruption.
My grandmother gave me an eyewitness account of one such encounter where a woman died instantly after the Tegare Priest had revealed a wrong attitude she had displayed during the performance on one of the days scheduled for Tegare spirit manifestation.
According to her story, the Priest, after he had been possessed by the spirit, declared that for what the woman had done, he would not forgive her and that he would kill. Instantly, according to my grandmother, the lady fell down suddenly and she died—just like what happened to Ananias and his wife Sapphira in Acts Chapter 5.
NB: ‘CHANGE KOTOKA INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT TO KOFI BAAKO
By Laud Kissi-Mensah
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BY ROBERT EKOW GRIMMOND-THOMPSON
