Memoires and Lamentations of Kwabena Amikaketo (25) What A Year Under Review

Kwabena Amikaketo sat in his favourite chair on his balcony, viewing the sky as a dark blanket started covering it to usher in night fall. It was about an hour and half to dinner, and he believed he had enough time to contemplate on two issues he tabled for the year 2020 under review.

The year began in Ghana like any other, and right through to Independence Day, everything was business as usual. Abroad though, there was the news that a virus was beginning to show its face and attacking the respiratory system of humans in China and effectively killing them off. It was named Coronavirus or COVID-19. The first was detected in China on November 17, 2019.

On January 12, 2020, the World Health Organisation (WHO) confirmed that the novel coronavirus was the cause of a respiratory illness that affected a cluster of people in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China. This was reported to the WHO on December 31, 2019.

It was on the Feast of St Valentine, February 14, 2020, that news broke that the virus had set foot in Africa, in the country called Egypt. On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organisation declared the novel COVID-19 a pandemic. Ghana had been doing fine until six days after the independence celebrations of March 6, 2020, when the first case was recorded. Ten days later, on March 22, 2020, Ghana recorded its first death related to COVID-19 complications. The victim was a 61-year-old Lebanese male in Kumasi.

In the month of March, initial response from the Government of Ghana resulted in joint meetings among major stakeholders, as well as training sessions organised for teachers and other professionals on how to handle suspected cases of the novel COVID-19. Measures instituted by the President of Ghana, H.E. Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, on March, 15  2020, included ban on school activities, ban on all social gatherings, and a temporary lockdown and restrictions of the movements of people in the Greater Accra and Ashanti regions of Ghana.

Fear and panic gripped the nation as the infection rates went up. Kwabena remembered at a corner shop where a lady who was coming to purchase a few items almost collapsed with fear when she was told the infection cases had hit 25 persons in the country. He hoped that lady would still be alive and well.

The temporary lockdown was, perhaps, the gloomiest period in the lives of Ghanaians in the affected areas, and this was even extended for another week.

Meanwhile, on a very regular basis the President would come on air to tell Ghanaians what was going on and steps being taken by the government and stakeholders to trace, control and manage the disease. His Information and Health ministers, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah and Agyeman Manu respectively, were among the star actors in this pandemic.

In a space of ten months, beginning March to December 2020, the President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, had come on air twenty times to speak to the nation on COVID-19 issues, an average of two broadcasts in a month to the nation.

Some of the measures he implemented to check the spread of the virus were a novelty in some developed nations. For example, the initial checks on arriving passengers at the Kotoka Airport were not done at the Heathrow Airport in the UK. Ghana’s approach was praised by a British Airways staff, who spread the news in his country. Heathrow, at that time, never conducted health checks on arriving passengers.

Kwabena remembered that at one point the number of active cases far exceeded the number of recovered cases. The nation was still under siege, with churches and mosques closed down, and all forms of social gatherings, especially burials and funerals, restricted.

Soon the actives cases started dropping from the four thousands, to three thousands to two thousands, and then to the one thousands. While the recovered cases started shooting up, sky rocketing. The recovery rate peaked into the eighty percentage points, while the active cases rate dipped into single digit percentage points.

Soon Ghana’s President was put among the top rated world leaders who were effectively managing the COVID-19 pandemic, while rich and powerful nations like the USA and UK were lost in wonder as to what to do.

Ghanaians were in high hopes that by the beginning of December 2020, active cases would be in the single digit. However, things took a sudden change as the active cases swung back into the high three digits, and soon entered the four digits.

It was not only in Ghana that cases started shooting up again. They call it the second wave, which in medical definition is explained like this: “A phenomenon of infections that can develop during a pandemic. The disease infects one group of people first. Infections appear to decrease. And then, infections increase in a different part of the population, resulting in a second wave of infections.” It is called a second wave, because just like the waves on the shore, there is the first, which comes like it is completely subsiding, then a second one breaks, sometimes more powerful than the first. For example, on September 16, 2020, Ghana’s Covid-19 records read 530 actives cases; 301 deaths; 45,651 recovered cases, making a total of 46, 482 infected cases. On percentages, active cases made up 1.14% of total infected, deaths, 0.65%; recovered cases, 98.21%, with 0.15% of the Ghanaian population infected.

Two months on, November 16, 2020, active cases went up to 1,473 or 2.94%, deaths rose to 322 or 0.64%; recovered cases were 48,328 or 96.42%, making a total of 50,123 infected cases. And 0.16% of the population was affected.

Last night, on December 21, 2020, Kwabena checked the records which read, active cases going down to 946 or 1.75%; deaths, at 333 or 0.62%; recovered cases going up to 52,675 or 97.63% out of a total of 53,954 infected, and that was 0.17% of the population. Well, if you had projected to be in the double digits by this time, but find yourself in the triple digits, you cannot say the storm is over.

Even as the world has announced vaccines for the COVID-19, people are being cautious. A cure for HIV/Aids, for instance, has still not been found. It is widely believed to have originated in Kinshasa in DR Congo 100 years ago, around 1920, when HIV/Aids crossed species from chimpanzees to humans.

While sporadic cases of HIV/Aids were documented prior to 1970, available data suggests that the current epidemic started in the mid to late 1970s. By 1980, HIV/Aids may have already spread to five continents (North America, South America, Europe, Africa and Australia). In this period, between 100,000 and 300,000 people could have already been infected. Most infections were from the gay community, when, in 1981, five young previously healthy gay men in Los Angeles were infected with a rare lung infection called pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (PCP).

By the end of 1985, every region in the world had reported, at least, one case of HIV/Aids, with 20,303 cases in total. And, to this day, no cure has been found. Experts said the problem of developing a vaccine was how to culture the virus to make it less potent, but able to develop anti-bodies in the body so that any infection can be destroyed by the cells. Meaning, as things stand, no matter the weakness of the HIV/Aids virus, if it is introduced into a human body that person will be infected.

If this is the case, then how safe is a COVID-19 vaccine? How come it was produced with such speed and despatch in such a short period of time when the same has not been done for HIV/Aids? The conspiracy theories about COVID-19 are now becoming more serious and need more attention.

Kwabena heard the President as he assured Ghanaians that he was going to acquire the vaccine in a bid to eradicate the virus from Ghana. Of course, what does one expect from a serious and dedicated leader who wishes nothing, but the best for his people? However, Kwabena wished he could get the President’s ears and suggest to him that every drug acquired from abroad should be tested to find out whether or not it has some damaging side effects. No one should trust the West, and of course, the East, as well.

Kwabena believed that if the COVID-19 had infected this part of the world before the White man came, our ancestors would have found a drug to combat it. He would suggest to the President that even though we must not entirely discard vaccines from outside, we must invest heavily in our traditional medicines to find cures for the various types of diseases, including HIV/Aids. The storm is not yet over.

And in politics, it is still not over. General Elections were held on December 7, 2020, and in the end, the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the National Democratic Congress (NDC) have an equal share of seats, 137/137, with one independent seat in the next Parliament.

On the presidential side, H.E. Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo got re-elected, leading his closest rival, John Mahama, with over 500,000 votes. And this, the NDC is insisting that it does not understand.

Kwabena was amazed as to how come the opposition party has not produced any shred of evidence to convince Ghanaians that it won the presidential election. However, instead of proceeding to court as the constitutional and right thing to do for the sake of peace in this country, the NDC has rather decided to go on violent demonstrations and burning down markets.

This is a party which claims it identifies with the poor and vulnerable, the grassroots base of society, and yet it goes to destroy the means of livelihoods of these very people it promises day-in day-out to lift them out of poverty.

Kwabena Amikaketo was stunned to hear the NDC General Secretary suggesting on air that the demonstrations would go on until the government is removed in the same way Acheampong was removed from office.

Acheampong was removed by a coup, palace or hamlet, it does not matter, “all coup be coup.” So is Asiedu Nketia suggesting a coup d’état in Ghana? Coming from a tradition which could overthrow its own party in power, one should not be surprised.

Kwabena sighed to himself, what a year of pandemic of virus and pandemic of lawless people! Just then his beautiful daughter, Echele, came to call him to dinner. He rose and held her hand as she ushered him indoors.

Hon Daniel Dugan

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect The Chronicle’s stance.

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