We are nowhere near witnessing six out of ten residents of downtown Accra using nose masks. The same cannot be said of other parts of the city outside East Legon, Cantonments, some parts of Osu and a few other places. Of those wearing the protective covering, half or so many are not doing so properly; an unproductive procedure just to repel cops enforcing the nose mask protocol.
Pulling the fabric below the chin and leaving the nasal passages and mouth exposed cannot be the appropriate way of using the nose mask and those doing so could have just gone without it.
While driving through the Abelenkpe and Dzorwulu segments of the highway from the Achimota Forest yesterday, many of the street hawkers were without the masks. When reminded to use the covering, one of them was bold enough to respond that “somebody has discouraged us from doing so because according to him it kills.”
That was telling and said with a certain air of uncaring. The DAILY GUIDE team was bewildered because of the implication that there are people in Accra who are still in denial about the reality of COVID-19.
In spite of the assortment of campaigns supporting the Ghana Health Service/World Health Organisation safety protocols, many Ghanaians do not nonetheless consider the foregone worthy of conforming to.
Enough is not being done to shepherd Ghanaians into using the face masks. We have heard about occasional police action in getting recalcitrant persons to use the masks. This notwithstanding, the number of those complying is still too small to trigger the appropriate effect that would be of use in the management of our chapter of the pandemic.
There is the need for a national conversation on how to get Ghanaians to use the nose masks and to do so in the right manner.
News about the rising COVID-19 statistics in the country does not appear to evoke a commensurate apprehension in people to push them to want to use the masks and to generally abide by the other protocols. That is responsible for the indifference; many would therefore put it on only to avoid questions from the occasional protocol enforcers.
Many do not know the cost of treating COVID-19 patients at the isolation centres/ICUs, the medications and oxygen et al.
So much is taken from the public purse to manage the cases, a fact the public is generally oblivious to. Were victims made to pay for their treatments at the public places and the public getting a better picture about how severe and critical cases of the virus-afflicted look like, the indifference would have given way to fear and a resultant strict adherence, even without a cop enforcing the protocols.
That the below average use of the face masks persists in spite of COVID Update 23 and the directives therein contained is ample suggestion that something more drastic must be done in the area of enforcement.
Even though it is our hope that by the time Update 24 is due the numbers would have started a downward spiral, the President must nonetheless be hard on us. The rate of indiscipline in our doings should inform the adoption of more stringent measures to have us conform to the protocols.