The government of Ghana through the ministry of health has declared December as vaccination month and is planning to make vaccination mandatory from January 2022.
As to wether this is on the back of the new omnicron variant surge and discoveries in Italy, Australia, Canada and South Africa and the possible surge in new cases during the Christmas holidays which is always loaded with events and gatherings all over the country, the Director - General of the Ghana Health Service (GHS) Dr. Patrick Kuma - Aboagye who made the announcement hinted exactly so as he made it clear that all staff and patrons of pubs, music concerts, nightclubs, hotels and stadiums must be vaccinated and show proof before being allowed access.
He also announced that the country had received about 12,324,710 doses of vaccines and had vaccinated over 5.4 million people 27th November, 2021.
Though he added that the public should not be concerned about the new variant as the science shows that new variants were sure to come up, he sounded worried enough in announcing that extra measures were in place at the Kotoka International Airport to identify positive cases among people from countries of concern.
Senior high and tertiary staff and students and the staff of government institutions are also on the list of people who must get vaccinated this December.
This is going to be a tough one for the government as most Ghanaians are still sceptical about taking the covid vaccines and rightly so because there has been no concrete reason why they should trust their very bodies to a new vaccine which is fighting a new disease and has failed to prevent the death of Vincent Konidare, a fully vaccinated man from Florida in the USA.
Many also fear the side effects of the vaccine as doctors in the USA stated that some people had blood clots, a condition that can lead to many dangers even death but they claim the benefits out weight the rare cases of blood clots. And how long did it take to create the vaccine? Why is the Ghana government and it's ministry of health only capable of begging for vaccines and buying vaccines even from the wrong sources? When are we creating ours? Maybe Ghanaians will take that one or they will then ask for the foreign ones.
The issue is many Ghanaians do not see vaccination as an emergency situation as our covid cases are not alarming any more. It seems we have conquered the Corona virus over here. Ghanaians do not see Covid-19 as a threat to their lives right now and if this perception doesn't change the mandatory vaccination will be a big failure. If vaccination is going to be achieved it must not be by such forceful means. The distrust and irrelevance of the vaccine at the moment cannot be solved by threatening people over their jobs and enjoyment, this will only anger the public if over done. Right now Ghanaians will need speaking to from all the people that they really trust with reasons that defeat the fact that we are not seeing Corona deaths or cases around us and proof that debunks all the conspiracies over the vaccines.
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