The sudden uptick in the number of arriving passengers testing positive for COVID-19 at the Kotoka International Airport (KIA) should not be overlooked.
The correspondence from Frontier Services Limited, the company administering the COVID-19 antigen tests at the KIA, and addressed to the Ghana Airports Company Limited, has left many Ghanaians worried.
The standard for Accra en route passengers from departure points is that they must be COVID-19 negative before being cleared for their flights.
That such passengers upon touchdown test otherwise is something the authorities should take a look at and a source of worry. Are we by this development to ignore the test results being flaunted in the face of airport health managers?
Perhaps the relevant authorities should engage with their counterparts in the originating countries about the strange test results which are at variance with theirs.
Imagine the repercussions if we had on the face value of such certificates of COVID-19 allowed their bearers uninhibited entry without further tests as policy directs: we would have facilitated a fresh wave of the infection.
Thankfully, the presidential directive demands that regardless of the positive tests showed by the new arrivals, they should be subjected to further tests.
The source of the questionable test results being showed by the new arrivals should be determined unless within the hours after the initial tests contracting the virus is possible.
We recognise and appreciate the decision of government on further tests at the entry point but for which the uptick in positive cases would not have been determined as under review.
There has been a suggestion that new arrivals be quarantined at their own costs, a reaction to the laboratory’s whistle. While we appreciate the concern and suggestion being posted on the public space, we beg to differ and ask that the status quo remains.
Measures which tend to turn away visitors from our country should be considered critically. We are yet to recover from the economic fallouts of the pandemic. Further measures which would impact negatively on the economy should be avoided.
That is not to downplay the cost of a fresh wave of the pandemic.
We have noticed the worrying development in India and elsewhere. The health system is virtually being overrun by the pandemic. This should be a source of an important lesson about complacency in the matter of the pandemic.
We have been spared what others are suffering in our part of the world and would encourage state agents charged with managing the pandemic to continue to discharge their invaluable service which with God’s support has spared us the worst of the pandemic.
The adherence to the protocols should continue even as the airport laboratory screening is given whatever impetus it requires to do even more.