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Former President John Dramani Mahama has had reason to draw a conclusion that the education and awareness creation about coronavirus pandemic in the country have been very poor.

Describing the situation as most unfortunate, the Flagbearer for the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) said his visit to his hometown to register  in the just ended voter registration exercise and then greet a few of the chiefs of his traditional area made him realized that people are not aware of the mode of transmission of the Covid-19.

Addressing a gathering at Keta Krachi in the Oti Region, former President Mahama narrated that he was armed bush in his way to Damongo as a huge crowd of people came out but nobody was social distancing and many people were not wearing masks.

“…and when I drew their attention to the protocols to prevent transmission, one of them told me that Covid-19 doesn’t affect Gonja people; can you imagine that? He was not wearing a mask, he wasn’t social distancing, he shouting at the top of his voice but that is because awareness has not been done properly. If you are faced with the pandemic like this, who are your key allies in making people understand what it is about?”, he recounted.

He however blamed the Akufo-Addo government for not involving key institutions like the religious leaders, traditional leaders and the assembly men in the public education and public awareness.

Mr. John Mahama was of the view that the country probably may not be at this point where its case count is among some of the highest numbers in Africa if the churches were preaching a sermon in church and telling people about Covid-19 and how to stay safe.

He therefore charged the Akufo-Addo government to come out with more comprehensive response plan as there is no such plan to Covid-19 except that it is instituting adhoc measures, making it difficult to control the coronavirus pandemic.

“The government should come out with more comprehensive response plan because as we speak, we don’t have any response plan to Covid-19. We are instituting adhoc measures and that is why we are not able to control it”, he claimed.

He asserted that testing has reduced as random testing which used to be conducted has stopped; thus, the idea of testing people only when they show symptoms of the virus is dangerous as community spread is already taking place.

The danger former President Mahama talked about is that “we have people who are called asymptomatic, they can get infected but they don’t show any symptoms, they don’t get the fever, the cough, nothing but are able to spread it on to other people who might not be as lucky.

“…young people especially have a very strong immune system an so they can get infected but not showing any signs but they can take that infection home and infect their fathers and mothers and grandparents and they unfortunately might not have the robust immune systems and might succumbed and died from the disease”, he bemoaned.

He therefore called on all and sundry to continue to pray and create the awareness that is necessary to stop the coronavirus pandemic in the country; giving the assurance of their forward march in protecting Ghanaians from losing their lives to the pandemic.

“We will all continue to work hard to make sure that this pandemic does not claim more lives in our society and we all pray that soon a vaccine will be found so that we can do mass immunization and protect our people so that life can return to normal”, he assured.