COVID-19: Disregard for social distancing amidst lockdown dangerous – GMA warns

The Ghana Medical Association (GMA) is warning of more danger should Ghanaians fail to observe the social distance protocol despite the lockdown order in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic.

Seven days into the lockdown, there are reports of some Ghanaians, market women and vendors failing to comply with social distancing directives.

The Ghana Medical Association which advocated for the lockdown now fears that the purpose of the lockdown will be defeated given the disregard for social distancing at the market centres and in communities.

General Secretary of the Association, Dr. Justice Yanksonon on Eyewitness News, therefore pleaded with Ghanaians to be mindful of their actions as a way of minimizing the spread as well fasten the process of returning to normal day to day activities.

“People seem to be abusing the only grant that the government gave us. You go to some of the markets and they are not respecting the social distancing as we are talking about. You go to some of the communities, and people are still sitting around in the neighbourhood. All these are recipes for disaster. We need to ensure that as much as possible we gain from this so we return to our economic activities. If we don’t comply and we do some of the things we are doing, then potentially we could be in this lockdown for a very long time. It is left with us as citizens to begin an introspection among ourselves by contributing our bit to prevent the spread of the virus.”

The GMA had argued that despite the economic difficulties in the country, a lockdown of Ghana at this stage of the increased number of Coronavirus cases will curtail the spread of the disease.

It suggested a partial shutdown of the Greater Accra and Ashanti Regions [hotspots of the virus in Ghana] where only essential service providers will be allowed to operate in order not to bring the life of the average Ghanaian to a standstill.

Case count

The total number of Coronavirus cases in Ghana has increased to 287.

This means that 73 more cases have been added to the country’s case count as of 6th April 2020, 23:30.

Total deaths and recovery remain at five (5) and three (3) respectively.

The rise in the number of cases follows measures of enhanced contact tracing and testing, the Ghana Health Service said.

Details of the latest additions were however not given.

So far, Greater Accra Region has most cases (258) followed by the Ashanti Region (18), Northern Region (10), Upper West Region (1), Eastern Region (1) and Upper East Region (1).