Opinions of Saturday, 28 March 2020
Columnist: Full Gospel Church International
To fight this coronavirus collectively, in addition to the measures taken by government, a more drastic measures must be considered before it gets out of hand due to the limited technology and capacity of our health institutions.
1.Government should enforce the directive on ban of public gatherings and ensure that defaulters are made to face the law. There should be a complete shutdown of all social gatherings.
2.The government through the District, Municipal and Metropolitan Assemblies should arrange with the Queen Mothers of all the markets in the cities and towns on the best ways to allow only foodstuffs to be sold and all other shops closed except essential ones like pharmacies etc for a period.
3.If there is a national task force, it should comprise of top Medical Doctors and Scientists under the leadership of the National Coordinator for Coronavirus.
4.Regional taskforce should also be set up as a supporting mechanism to the National Taskforce.
5.Government should engage in Public Private Partnership with the pharmaceutical firms in the country to produces hand sanitizers in quantities at affordable prices as the primary preventive measure for the citizens.
6.There is no reason for water and Electricity to be rationed under this critical time we live in. The two companies should find immediate solution otherwise how can people wash hands under running water if that is one of the major preventive measures to halt the spread.
7.Government through the GPRTU to ensure that public transports should not load beyond half of their capacity to ensure spacing and avoid body to body contact.
8.To consider the possibility to halt traveling from one region to another for a period.
This I believe should be the actions to be taken by government to contain the spread of the COVID 19 before it gets out of hand.