The United States of America, which has over six million and counting coronavirus cases with over 200,000 deaths, has cautioned its citizens to “reconsider travel to Ghana due to COVID-19.”
The Department of State through the U.S. Embassy in Ghana announced the Level 3 Travel Health Notice on Tuesday, September 22, 2020, for Ghana which has been touted as one of the few African countries to have a successful decline in new coronavirus cases and a lower death toll of 297.
Issued by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) which has failed to contain the disease in the most powerful country of the world, the Alert comes at a time that the U.S. is grieving over having the highest death toll globally.
Ghana, and Africa at large, have left the world dumbfounded at how they contained the coronavirus which has brought the U.S. and Europe to their knees. Many scientists have propounded theories that relatively demeaned the efforts of African scientists to control the spread of the virus.
The leader of the United States, Donald Trump, has continuously played down the dangers caused by the coronavirus with his latest misleading claim on Monday in Ohio being that the virus affects “only elderly people with heart problems” and “nobody young”.
On Tuesday evening as Trump left the White House for Pennsylvania, he responded to a reporter’s question about the 200,000 deaths, saying: “It’s a shame… China let it happen.”
While the U.S. fights its battle, Ghana is systematically restoring normalcy with the reopening of air borders on September 1, 2020, to international travels; resumption of school for some sections of students to write their final examination and the lifting of ban on some social activities among others ahead of its general elections on December 7, 2020.
Meanwhile, the Level 3 Travel Alert further advised American citizens in Ghana to exercise increased caution in: urban areas due to crime; intercity highways after dark due to crime; areas near the northern border in the Upper East and Upper West regions due to crime; parts of the Bono East, Bono, Savannah, Northern, North East, and Upper East regions due to civil unrest.
For the claim of civil unrest in six regions of the country, the Alert explained: “Civil unrest due to tribal disputes can occur at any time. While such disputes are typically non-violent, the likelihood for violence developing from a tribal dispute is greater in parts of these regions.”
Australia, which has in place a ban on overseas travel, has issued a Level 4 RED Alert advising its citizens not to travel to Ghana at all because,among others, “there's a higher risk of community transmission of COVID-19 in Accra and Kumasi.”
President Akufo-Addo and President Trump shaking hands during a 2017 meeting at the White House