There is the need for a national discussion on how to transition the country into living with COVID-19 in safety, referred to as living the “new normal,” the Minister of Information, Mr Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, has said. He explained that a broader discourse beyond ongoing stakeholder engagements was part of the government’s social mobilisation efforts to find an all-inclusive and better responsive solution to easing the COVID-19-occasioned restrictions gradually.
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Addressing a bi-weekly briefing on COVID-19, the minister said the conversation on living the new normal would be in two-fold.
“We would be leading one aspect of the conversation as state, while we encourage our partners in the fourth estate of the realm, the media, to also, as they do always, help by engaging the public actively on their platforms to solicit views and relay it to the government,” he explained.
According to Mr Oppong Nkrumah, the issue was not whether or not it was possible to ease the restrictions, but specifically, “what people think will take them to live normal as possible with the virus in the global and national ecosystem, while ensuring the public was safe.”
Mr Oppong Nkrumah said that had become necessary because the world had come to the realisation that COVID-19 would be around for a long time, but living forever in restriction was not feasible.
“The world is coming to a realisation that what appeared to be one of the preventive measures, the lockdown or stay-at-home policies and other restrictions cannot go on in perpetuity.
“And so at some point, as we are seeing all over the world, there is the need to ease those restrictions gradually with the consciousness that the pandemic was still in the global ecosystem and, therefore, public health safety protocols were to be adhered to,” he added.
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