DOCTORS CALL FOR A 14-DAY LOCKDOWN. WE DISAGREE
We have a lot of respect for our medical doctors. We acknowledge the good work they do around the country in normal times and especially in a pandemic like this. They do so at great risk – sometimes even losing their own lives. We congratulate them for the work they have done so far in preparing for the coronavirus pandemic which, unfortunately has attacked Sierra Leone. There are tough times ahead for the good people of Sierra Leone and the world. We cannot do without the services of our doctors, our nurses and the many other healthcare workers.
We have read their statement to the authorities a few hours after one of their colleagues tested positive for the coronavirus and we agree with them on almost all the other issues they raised. We however find it extremely difficult to agree with them on their call for this country to be locked down for FOURTEEN DAYS – the scientific community believes this is the incubation period for the killer virus. So while it may be a good way to be able to pick out the sick and deliver them to treatment centers easily, the consequences of locking down Sierra Leone for 14 DAYS are too horrendous to imagine and for our doctors to believe that the government did not think about exercising that option is problematic. Here’s is why we believe the government did not go for the TWO WEEK option.
1. Even the three-day lockdown that begins this weekend had to be announced on Tuesday to give our people time to prepare food and water in their homes. Imagine a 14 –day lockdown.
2. South Africa is in a 21 day lockdown and less than a week into that, there are pictures all over the media of soldiers arresting and beating people who are fed up with being under a kind of house arrest. What’s the point of declaring something we cannot enforce? And in many parts of India the situation is exploding because hunger is pushing the people out, despite the billions put at the disposal of feeding the poorest of the poor.
3. The only way a 14-day lockdown will be carried out without pain to ordinary people who live on what they pick on the streets daily is for the government to give every household ONE MILLION LEONES to stock up on food and drinks.
4. The two cases we have so far came from a quarantined facility and a hospital. Let’s therefore trace those contacts quickly and kill the threat. Why lockdown Kabala and Bonthe for TWO WEEKS for something that happened or manifested in Brookfields and Rokel when there is no trace to those places? Besides, during Ebola, we never locked down for three weeks under the pretext that EVD’s incubation period is 21 weeks.
5. We know these are difficult times for the world but we really expected our doctors to inspire the nation and not sound as downbeat as they did in that statement. Cheer up, guys. We depend on you. We don’t want it to appear that just because a colleague is positive you now feel the urge to recommend such drastic actions as if you are pressing the panic button.
CORONAVIRUNS IS HERE: TWO CASES ON RECORD NOW AND THERE COULD BE MORE
It didn’t come as a surprise to us Sierra Leoneans when Principal announced to the world that we now have a positive coronavirus case. Principal himself said a few weeks back that it was now only a question of WHEN not IF the virus will strike this country. That WHEN question has now been answered. The date is Tuesday 31st March, 2020. Now we have another case and we are tracing their contacts. Who knows? This date now goes into our history books as the day coronavirus hit Sierra Leone, despite our best efforts to stop it.
We always knew that the last days of March would be extremely crucial for us because all those who came to this country from Europe and America a few days before we closed our airport and were quarantined would be due for release. We hoped and prayed that this cup may pass us by but here we are with TWO CASES and possibly more. So what do we do from this point on?
1. Let’s not continue feeling sorry for ourselves. We have the two cases within our grasp now and we are tracing contacts. Hopefully the cases we have now will come through the ordeal and survive. We should now turn our attention in a serious and sustained way to what is happening on our land borders. We haven’t heard much from Liberia in the last few days but Guinea is becoming desperate. WE MUST RAISE OUR GAME NOW.
2. We are aware that Kotor Juldeh visited the border areas last weekend and urged the people to join the security forces deployed there to fight the disease by stopping people entering undetected because they may well be infected. We now call on the new man in charge of our fight against the coronavirus to speak to us about the situation on those borders.
3. We also call on the good people of Sierra Leone to stop this business of stigmatizing those infected by sharing their photos all over social media and making cynical comments about them. They are human being like us who wish to be well at all times and to enjoy life. We must protect our brothers and sisters when they are in difficulty.
ADMINISTRATIVE MUSICAL CHAIR AT NJALA UNIVERSITY
The Ministry for Tertiary Education should now explain to this nation why they keep changing administrative heads at Njala University like cutting off the tail of a lizard – so easily. The statement that the two professors recently sacked were not working in the interest of the institution opens up a lot of questions instead of answering this most important question: WHY CAN’T NJALA BE ALLOWED TO RUN LIKE ANY OTHER NORMAL UNIVERSITY? The all-too-frequent interference of politicians in the affairs of Njala University is not a good way to go.
We are told that Professor Bongology will be there until the ministry’s preferred choice for Vice Chancellor arrives in Freetown from abroad. Professor Abrahams, now the substantive Pro-Chancellor may not last in that post beyond Christmas 2020. We say so because he is a tough independent-minded guy who has a meddlesome Tertiary Education ministry over his shoulders.
Hiding behind the statement that Prof. Abadallah Mansaray and his colleague did not work in the interest of the college is not enough cover for the many Sierra Leoneans who knew all along that because Prof. Kandeh insisted on due process in appointing the new Deputy Vice Chancellors against the wish of the people at New England, he was a dead man walking.
How this may affect staff morale and indeed that of students is something to determine down the road. All we know is that right now academic staff are very badly divided.
CHECKING THINGS OUT ALONG THE HILLSIDE BY-PASS ROAD
This week we’ve been checking things out along the hillside by-pass road that runs from Dwazark Junction in the west to Blackhall road on the east. This road was a project started under Tejan Kabbah, all preliminaries were done. King Messi started the actual construction but at the end of eleven years when he left office the THREE POINT SEVEN KILOMETER road project was halfway through. In fact the second half of the thing looked abandoned. What we’ve heard so far from the SLRA in the last few days suggests that there’s a lot of work to do to complete this road.
Meanwhile we want to draw the attention of the SLRA to something we believe they should urgently deal with on that road otherwise the first phase of this project completed in 2015 will be in danger.
The engineers in charge of this project should drive to the area where construction stopped at the end of the first phase, just around Mountain Cut to the left and see what people are doing there and how that may threaten what has been achieved so far and possibly disrupt the resumption of work. There is a Kekeh garage and a glorified scrapyard for all rotten vehicles in the central area, it would seem, and above all, an unofficial car wash. Certainly the combined effect of all those operations could end up digging the road itself creating a den for all kinds of anti-social activity that the community will hate to experience even before the remaining phases begin. Sadly we don’t know when this vital road link will be completed.
SLRA should please tell us what's going on at that place and why those so-called disgruntled men are carving out the Right of Way for themselves. Or at least we expect SLRA to clear up this Right of Way so the nation will not be asked for more money in future. Clear the scrapyard now!
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