The leader of the Risk Communication for COVID-19 National Response Team, Dr. Da Costa Aboagye has cautioned Ghanaians not to be complacent over reports that the infection rate of the virus has reduced rapidly.
“Currently, there are no recorded COVID-19 cases in the North East, Savannah, Upper East, and Upper West Regions, and I charge their residents to do everything possible to maintain that situation. Greater Accra, Ashanti, Central, Eastern, and Western continue to be the Regions with the highest number of active cases. Thus far, a total of 40,567 persons have recovered from the virus. This means our recovery rate has improved from 89.5% to 95.1% in three weeks,” he said.
Dr. Da Costa Aboagye explained that the reduction in the local infections [community spreads] is as a result of the measures put in place by the government, Ghana Health Service, Ministry of Health with support from various stakeholders like the media as well as the compliance of safety protocols by Ghanaians.
According to the Director of Health Promotion, in spite of the rapid reduction in the rate of COVID-19 infection, the nation is at the critical stage in the fight against the pandemic.
He said there was a need for an intensified public education and community engagement so that citizens do not lose their guard on the safety protocols, thinking the fight is over and won.
“The reason why I said we have reached the critical stage in the fight against the COVID-19 is that as a country, this is the time that we have to see the need to intensify public education, community engagement like house-to-house education and make sure that every Ghanaian is adhering to the safety protocols; wearing of the face masks, regular washing of hands of at least 20 seconds with soap under running water”, he cautioned.
He maintained that the time for every Ghanaians to eat a well-balanced diet especially from the local foods is now as it is part of the means to boost the immune system
“This is the time that every Ghanaian should eat well-balanced diet from local foods and adhere to all the preventive measures 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; we should not be complacent”, he cautioned.
“If we don’t comply with the safety protocols, the infection rate will shoot up because we have seen a similar situation in other countries and so the media should use their platforms to help us the risk communication and community engagement team to continue to make Ghanaians aware that we have reached a critical stage in the fight against COVID-19”, he urged.