KNUST Research Scientist Disagrees with GMA’s Position on a National Lockdown
Dr. Michael Owusu, a Research Scientist at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) Department of Medical Diagnostic, does notsupport the position of the Ghana Medical Association’s (GMA) calling on government to declare national lockdown amidst the increasing cases of covid-19recorded in Ghana.
Dr. Owusu argues that government should rather identify the various epicenters in the country and implement the lockdown in those areas instead of blanket lockdown of the entire country.
Speaking on Joy FM’s NewsNite programme on Wednesday, he said that “We [Ghana] have collected a lot of data from the contact tracing, we have information about the people who have the disease and where they have been.
“So with this information, we can mark these places out, liaise with the telecommunication companies to get the nearest coordinate of all these people. Then we can target size within Accra or size within Kumasi you can implement the policy,” he recommended.
His comments comes after the Ghana Medical Association in a Press Statement called upon President Nana Akufo-Addo to declare nationwide lockdown with immediate effect.
The letter by the GMA in part explained that implementing a lockdown will “save our nation from the devastating effects of this pandemic.”
However, Dr. Owusu contends that country wide lockdown will adversely affect livelihoods of Ghanaians particularly, the persons in the informal sector.
The Research Scientist further emphasized that rush- through lockdown cannot predict how long the lockdown will last and how successful it will be.
“Perhaps the time you open up, that will be the time people will start exhibiting the symptoms of the virus.
“However, based on data gathered, you can be able to target specific places and lock these places, for perhaps 21-days [and] do mass testing to ensure they are negative and then move on to another place.”
Who is coming out with these figures? On what basis are they doing these research and who is responsible for the release of the information.
Are there some useless people in the name of journalism and causing unnecessary scare? If so God punish them seriously with times 7 of the virus. I rest my case