Social Commentator, Bernard Allotey Jacobs, has thrown his weight behind the new directive by the Ghana Health Service(GHS) for all persons entering Ghana to be fully vaccinated before they are allowed entry.
According to the GHS, all unvaccinated Ghanaians and people with residential status returning to Ghana after 14 days from Monday midnight will be vaccinated on arrival; as well all persons 18 years or above arriving in the country are required to provide evidence of full vaccination for COVID-19.
However, the directive, which came into force from December 14, 2021, has invited some divided opinions.
The National Communications Officer of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Sammy Gyamfi, has condemned the directive saying in a Facebook post that, “vaccination must be by choice and not by force. The imposition of compulsory COVID vaccination requirement on all Ghanaians traveling into and out of Ghana by the Ghana Health Service is reprehensible and an affront to the 1992 Constitution. And some of us are determined to fight this madness through every available legal means no matter the cost or stigma”.
Ningo Prampram MP, Sam George also reacting to the directive, argued on his Twitter page that the “compulsory vaccination upon entry to the Republic? Infringement of rights or public health policy? This is sound public health policy and a very good step by govt. I support it and hope it is implemented vigorously. Public health considerations supersede personal liberties”.
To Allotey Jacobs, the mandatory vaccination is in the right order.
He argued that ensuring that all Ghanaians are fully vaccinated against the Coronavirus, particularly in the wake of the Omicron variant, is the way to go to protect the citizenry against the disease.
He condemned the criticisms about the directive saying, “immediately, you issue a mandatory [directive] on COVID that it should be compulsory for every person to vaccinate against COVID, you won’t be surprised to see those we call the braggart [they] will come out and say certain things against that order”.
Allotey Jacobs called on the government to activate the Information Service Department to begin educating the masses on the importance of compulsory vaccination in order to defeat the arguments by those he termed as “pessimists”.
“Where is the Information Service Department? Because, with this mandatory decision by government, by this time the ISD should behave rolled to the towns and villages explaining reasons why one should take the injection and we too should be asking the Ministry of Health where the injections are, telling them to bring it for us to vaccinate . . . they should do the by force [vaccination] . . . I support the decision that we should all vaccinate by force,” he said during Peace FM’s ‘Kokrokoo’ programme.