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Opinions on Sunday, March 7, 2021
Columnist: Mohammed Ezzideen Yakub
2021-03-07
The writer
I send you a cordial greeting, fellow “countrywo (men)”. I am sure you are doing very well.
Last year, I wrote a series of articles on COVID-19, and I am deeply grateful for taking time out of your busy schedules to peruse them. This year, for the first time so far, I am reviewing the theme and longing for your indulgence if there are many repeats.
Before continuing, I would like to take this opportunity to wish everyone a Happy Independence Day. Today, March 6, 2021, is one of our nation’s holy days and marks exactly sixty-four years that we gained independence from colonial rule, thanks to the tireless efforts of our patriotic ancestors. His selflessness and patriotism turned the Gold Coast, which once thrived on a shaky footing, into the stable Ghana we enjoy today. For this and many more, we will always hold you in high esteem as people of no less character than our heroes or heroines. As a nation, we have come a long way, but we still have miles to go. May God bless our homeland Ghana and make it great and strong.
Comrades compatriots, although it seems that it was yesterday, March 12, 2021, it will be exactly one year since we registered the first two cases of COVID-19 on our shores. From then until now, the disease has beaten and bruised thousands of people to its lowest levels. Even more aggravating is the fact that COVID-19 has killed many people in a way that is impossible to count, let alone order them chronologically. Some of the people who have died from the monstrous disease are our loved ones, who otherwise would have lived longer and more prosperous lives.
The effects of COVID-19 on our livelihoods cannot be overstated, because it is loud and clear, perhaps even to a five-year-old, how the disease has come to intimidate all of us into bowing to lifestyles that never we had dreamed. prior to. It has affected almost every aspect of our lives: greetings, funerals, marriages, worship, education, travel, and entertainment, among other things. If nothing at all, there was a time when all schools, houses of worship, and stadiums were closed.
Wearing face masks, washing our hands regularly, sanitizing our hands, and observing social distancing became the new normal, a modus operandi, for that matter. Beyond these, some fractions of the country were forced into a partial blockade, against their will and comfortably. All of these changes in our way of life were due to the effects that COVID-19 had, and continues to have, on us. We couldn’t help but comply, because those were the only possible ways to protect ourselves and our loved ones from the wrath of viral disease.
Fearful of the nightmarish effects of disease on us, we resort to praying and waiting impatiently when God will miraculously wipe the disease off the surface of our country and from the earth at large. In fact, God has answered our prayers, but in an indirect way. The answer to our perennial prayer is the development of vaccines, biological preparations that provide active acquired immunity to a particular infectious disease (in this case, COVID-19). What vaccines do is protect us against a particular disease even before we contract it. So the COVID-19 vaccines developed are meant to protect us from contracting the disease.
Scientists have worked tirelessly to develop different forms of COVID-19 vaccines, including the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine and the AstraZeneca / Oxford COVID-19 vaccine, both of which have undergone strictly controlled trials to determine their efficacy and safety. Before the WHO approves a vaccine for use, it is first tested in animals to assess its safety and its potential to prevent disease. It is then tested in humans, known as a clinical trial, in three phases (details of the phases will likely come in a follow-up article).
As far as Ghana is concerned, we have among us the AstraZeneca / Oxford COVID-19 vaccine and as mentioned above, the AstraZeneca / Oxford COVID-19 vaccine has gone through all phases of testing, confirming that it is safe for your use. . Vaccination is already underway in Ghana, and some conspiracies are likely to mislead you into thinking that vaccines are meant to wipe the African race off the surface of the earth. Those conspiracies are false, simply because they are baseless without any proof and deserve no treatment other than the utter contempt they deserve.
My fellow citizens, we have had enough of the tribulations of COVID-19, and we all long to get back to our normal lives. A good way to achieve this goal is by getting vaccinated when vaccines arrive at our doors. Even if you feel like the vaccine has a palpable risk, the risk of getting vaccinated is much lower than the risk of not getting vaccinated. Given this, when the time comes, we are going to get vaccinated. I promise to allow myself to be vaccinated, and so will you, my dear.
Once again, Happy Independence Day everyone. May God bless our homeland Ghana and make it great and strong.
