COVID-19: Lockdown Greater Accra, Ashanti Regions – Bureau of Public Safety

• Posted on March 23, 2020March 23, 2020
• by Nana Kwesi Coomson
• Comment

The Bureau of Public Safety has called for the “immediate discriminated lockdown” of Greater Accra and Ashanti Regions for at least 21 days.

The Bureau also called for the lockdown of all Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) and all All Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs).

It added that essential services could be exempted from this lockdown.

In the urge to the government, the Bureau also called on the President “to draw from lessons from countries such as China, Italy, etc which have been hard hit by the pandemic and timely actions of Rwanda which has fewer cases yet has taken that bold decision to lockdown.”

Ghana has had 24 cases of the novel coronavirus with one death.

The cases have spawned over hundreds of contacts, which the Bureau finds worrying.

“With the list of traceable contacts increasing by the day in their hundreds, the task of tracing and effectively monitoring contacts may become overwhelming as confirmed cases increase by the day.”

To cushion Ghanaians in the regions that could be affected by a lockdown, it further recommended that “Government immediately works out a social support package for population groups that may be hard hit by these measures.”

“While these actions will definitely have a negative impact on the economy in the immediate to short term, our country and its citizens stand to benefit in the medium to long term as we collectively work to break the chain of COVID-19 infections,” it added.

-Citi