APRIL 1

WWW.DAILYHERITAGE.COM.GH
06
DAILY HERITAGE WEDNESDAY, APRIL 1, 2020
The story that one of the 10 Guineans
who tested positive for Covid-19 in
Tamale has escaped from the mandatory
isolation centre should be of great
concern to Ghanaians, even if it turns
out that she was found hours after her
escape, which is something we did not
hear of at the time of going to the
press.
It is said that the lady, who authorities
say is in her early 20s, scaled the
wall at the back of the hotel where she
and the nine other compatriots were
being held in mandatory quarantine.
“At midnight when everybody was
asleep she scaled the wall and escaped,
leaving her belongings, including a mobile
phone,” Northern Regional Minister,
Salifu Saeed stated.
He added that security personnel
had launched a manhunt for her and
that the Guinean escaped at the blind
side of two police officers and two military
personnel who were guarding the
hotel.
Mr Saeed is said to have urged for
Editorial
How secure are our security operations?
calm as measures had been put in place
to ensure the woman could be captured
and returned to quarantine for
her safety as well as that of others.
The foreigners are said to have been
in the country for 11 days before they
were arrested and put in mandatory
self-isolation after they arrived in the
Northern regional capital, Tamale,
through Burkina Faso and Togo.
First, let's accept that the pieces of
information about these Guineans
were provided by them when they were
arrested in Tamale, yet we need to ask
questions.
If as the information has it is the
case, then it means they came in before
our air, land and sea borders were
closed on March 22, 2020, meaning
they could come in then but on certain
conditions such as coming in to do
something sanctioned by Ecowas protocols
since they are from an Ecowas
country and as such can come in without
visa.
Even if that is the case, should that
norm hold at a time the Coronavirus
had announced itself in the West
African sub-region with Burkina Faso
having started recording deaths, however
small the figure was?
Who allowed these foreigners into
our country and under what conditions?
Can we say our borders are not safe
even with the presence of immigration
officers, as security men and women,
doing border preventive or surveillance
duties among other assignments?
Now the Guineans come in and are
found to be Coronavirus-positive and
quarantined, and four security personnel
detailed to watch over or guard the
premises of the hotel where the people
have been quarantined.
Then the nation wakes up to be told
that one of the 10 persons quarantined,
a young woman, one in her 20s,
has escaped from quarantine, and that
she did that on the blind side of the
four security personnel.
Even from the lay man's point of
view, all things being equal, premises
usually have four corners, so ideally,
each security personnel was to man a
corner.
What were the arrangements such
that the men could get a blind side for
that woman to exploit?
Did the security personnel think all
was well, so they congregated at one
place or just slept?
Was there any compromise anywhere?
What actually happened?
These and other questions that
could be asked as the details unfold are
the basis for which the DAILY
HERITAGE tend to raise some concerns
and cap them with the question,
"How secure are our security operations?
As to what the escaped woman can
do to spread the Coronavirus, the
guesses could be many and all would
be right even if she adopts only one.
31 Covid-19 patients recover
– Dep. Health Minister
BY KWAME ACHEAMPONG
THIRTY-ONE
OUT of the 161
Coronavirus patients
in Ghana
have recovered,
Deputy Health
Minister, Mr Alexander Abban,
has told Starr News.
“Government has been very
resolute in the fight against coronavirus.
We are happy to announce
that out of the 161 cases
we have, 31 have recovered,” he
told Starr News's Ibrahim Alhassan
on Tuesday, March 31, 2020.
Meanwhile, twenty-two health
professionals at the Ledzokuku
Krowor Municipal Assembly
(LEKMA) Hospital at Teshie
have been put on quarantine after
a medical doctor at the facility
tested positive for coronavirus.
The unnamed physician is believed
to have contracted the
• Scenes at Ghana’s Airport before the closure
virus at a different health centre
where he works on a part-time
basis.
“He contracted the virus from
another place but he is our staff
member and this got to our attention
on Friday. And since then we
have placed about 22 of the people
we believe he came into contact
with into quarantine so we
can avoid a possible spread if
any," the Municipal Health Director
for LEKMA, Ms Jackie Farijlani,
said.
Some of his colleagues told
Starr News they were scared, especially
as there were not enough
PPE to work with.
Commenting on the development,
the Municipal Health Director
for LEKMA, Ms Jackie
Farijlani, told Starr News the
health directorate had taken
enough measures to ensure health
professionals were protected.
Ghana has recorded 161 confirmed
cases of Coronavirus with
five fatalities as of yesterday,
March 31, 2020. The first confirmed
case was recorded on
March 13, 2020.