Dr. Justice Yankson, General Secretary of the Ghana Medical Association (GMA), says those who were involved in the installation of Okuapehene must be punished.
Dr Yankson says with many flouting the social distancing directive from President Akufo-Addo as part of measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19 they must be punished.
Okuapeman began rites to enstool Odehye Kwadwo Kesse on May 1, 2020, in the Eastern Region and many flouted the social distancing directive as there were large crowds at the event.
Many were seen without nose mask and stood close to each other and that is against the directives given by the President and the Ghana Medical Association to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
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“There is a risk out there, there was no social distancing, a few people were wearing nose masks which is dangerous. This could have been done by a few people. We saw people holding hands and flouted the one-meter social distancing rule, this is unacceptable and must not be encouraged. Fight against the spread of COVID-19 depends on compliance, the National House of Chiefs should be asking themselves questions, the Police administration who provided security must also answer questions, the people involved must be arrested and punished for flouting the President’s directives, people must be held responsible for their actions, we can’t allow this to happen when we are all fighting a pandemic.
He also said the social distancing protocol must be reviewed because it seems our focus is solely on market women observing that directive.
“We need to review the social distancing protocols. We only talk about the markets not observing social distancing but people in our communities are also not observing social distancing If you look at the cases in Ghana most of our cases are asymptomatic. They don’t show any signs of illness,†he said on Joy FM’s NewsFile on May 3, 2020.
Okuapeman who have had a Chieftancy dispute for almost 3 years begun processes to install the 34-year-old as the new Okuapehene.
Ghana’s Coronavirus case count has leaped from 1671 to 2074 after 403 new cases were recorded.
The Ghana Health Service (GHS) announced the new figures on its website on April 30, 2020.
The Greater Accra region remains Ghana’s epicentre with 1,795 cases followed by Ashanti with 99.
Eastern is next with 70, Central has 21 while Oti and Upper East have 19 each.
The rest are Volta, 16; Northern, 13; Upper West, 10; Western Region, 9; North East Region, 2; and Western North, 1.
Meanwhile one more person has died, bringing the death toll to 17.
The number of recoveries has also increased from 188 to 212.
Out of the 2074 cases, 62% are males while 38% are females. 12% have history of travel with the remaining 88% having no clear history of travel.
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