COVID-19: We have ourselves to blame for where we are – Immunologist

An Immunologist at the West Africa Center for Cell Biology of Infectious Pathogens, University of Ghana, Dr Yaw Bediako has said that Ghanaians have themselves to blame for the upsurge in the country’s covid-19 counts in the past months.

According to him, although the new variant of the coronavirus disease spread faster, the country would have been safe to some extent if all the protocols were being adhered strictly to when the new variant surfaced.

“But then the virus has also change to a new variant that spread even more easily so you put those factors together and you now have an explosion of covid-19 that is driven by both behavioral issues among people and then also a highly transmissible variant”.

“But you cannot just blame it on the virus, if the variant had emerged but we were adhering to strict restrictions, we will not find ourselves in this situation. In many ways we have ourselves to blame for where we are”, he said.

Dr Yaw Bediako made the comment on TV3’s weekend current affairs programme, the KEY POINT on Saturday, February, 6 2021 and monitored by GhanaPlus.com.

New COVID-19 variant fasting replacing the old virus in Ghana

He revealed investigations conducted by the University of Ghana into samples collected from January through to February tested for the new variant indicating it is fast replacing the old variant which was first recorded by the country in March last year.

He bemoaned the lack of commitment from the public in adhering to the lay down safety protocols and charged government to find alternative ways to compel them to do so.

Ghana’s COVID-19

Ghana since January had witness a surge in the coronavirus disease recording an average case count of about Seven Hundred (700).

The surge has been attributed to a new variant of the novel coronavirus which has the tendency to spread faster.

Currently, the country’s case count stands at Seventy Thousand and Forty Six (70,046) out of which Four Hundred and Fourty Nine (449) lives have succumb to the disease.

Some Six Thousand and Ninety Five (6,095) have recovered and discharged.

Source: GhanaPlus.com