<<Print>>

Managing Editor of the Insight newspaper, Kwesi Pratt is upset about the apparent laxity by Government of Ghana in taking drastic measures to curtail the spread of Covid-19 in the country.

Kwesi Pratt expressed worry that State authorities dealing with the virus infection haven’t yet taken a holistic approach to treat the situation at hand as "severe".

Mr. Pratt was responding to a comment by the Health Advisor to President Nana Akufo-Addo on Tuesday edition of “Kokrokoo’’ on Peace FM.

The Presidential Health Advisor, Dr. Anthony Nsiah Asare speaking to host Kwami Sefa Kayi on the programme noted that Ghana has not recorded any severe cases of Covid-19 irrespective of the fact that currently there have been 152 people who have tested positive.

Dr. Nsiah Asare noted that though five people have been confirmed dead, the victims had underlying medical conditions that made their case worse resulting in their unfortunate death, adding that there are lots of recordings of mild cases of the virus infection. 

He however added that though Ghana’s situation is not worse, the government has undertaken progressive planning to bring the infection to a minimal rate and also ensure high recovery cases.

Dr. Nsiah Asare disclosed that lots of the Personal Protective Equipment (PPEs) have been purchased for frontline health workers treating the victims and test kits as well as ventilators are being procured to augment the current stock.

Nonetheless, Kwesi Pratt believes the preparations towards fighting the virus are not adequate as he sees government thinking that Ghana’s situation is not as severe as other countries around the world.

“When you look at some countries with 1 case and then moved to 3 cases and so on, we see how it rose. So, we have 152 cases, assuming these figures are correct; we should be very worried because we can very quickly move from 152 in a matter of two weeks to thousands’’, he stressed.

He called on government to deal with the situation as urgent as countries like China, Italy and the United States have recorded extreme cases of Covid-19.

“With 152 cases, we’re already there…We have an advantage that other countries don’t have because we had the virus late. So, we can look at the Chinese, what they did, their history and so on. We have that advantage that the Chinese didn’t have. We have advantages which the United States didn’t have and so on’’,  he stated, stressing that "we’re at a stage that we should take emergency measures, drastic measures in order to stop this''.