Decentralize, localize coronavirus lockdowns – Security analyst to govt

Security analyst Colonel Festus Aboagye says government’s earlier partial lockdown of Greater Accra and Greater Kumasi should have been done “boldly and very decisively nationwide”.

His sentiments come on the back of the increasing number of confirmed Coid-19 cases in the country with the tally standing at 2,719 as of Monday, according to the GHS website.

Colonel Aboagye, however, suggested that if a lockdown was to happen again, it should be decentralized and localized.

Speaking on the Morning Starr with Francis Abban Tuesday, he said “therefore the only strategy that we are left with now is to decentralize and localize the lockdown. So let’s say that Pokuase or Kwabenya is an epicentre, it will be easier now to isolate Pokuase or such other localities and put them under lockdown and do the mass testing and all the necessary steps. That should be easier.”

“That probably has to be the way that we need to go but I don’t think it’s going to be too practicable to lock down the entire nation,” he added.

Analyzing the impact of the earlier lockdown in controlling the spread of the virus, he said: “If we had locked down very boldly very decisively nationwide for let’s say 21 consecutive days, the impact would have been greater than locking down partially in terms of geography and then incrementally from fourteen days and then another seven days.

“You can realize that there are a lot of people now who are against lockdown. Not because the lockdown is bad but because we failed to plan, we failed to recognize that if you lock down you impose hardships and therefore it obligatory on the part of the state to relief those hardships.”