By Amin Kef Sesay
The Hastings National COVID-19 Emergency and Response Center team headed by Sgt Andrew Davowah intensifies its monitoring exercise over the weekend and throughout the week as part of efforts to ensure that businesses and ordinary residents abide by the COVID-19 regulations.
NaCOVERC has continued to make considerable progress on its work to enhance social distancing in markets places, business stalls all in a bid to enhance combating the spread of the Corona Virus in the country.
The NaCOVERC team was visible around Hastings and its environs on effective social distancing measures.
The team also engaged key partners including market chairladies, representatives of the Traders’ Union, Drivers’ Union, Sierra Leone Road Safety Authority (SLRSA) and local residents in a bid to sensitize the wider populace to enhance adherence to the regulations.
The monitoring exercise is going side by side with key messages that are disseminated on major streets and communities within Hastings, Allen Town, and Calaba Town lorry park and market place.
On Monday alone NaCOVERC personnel were able to reach out to over ten business places, talked to shop owners and market women about COVID-19 regulations and how they could help in the fight as well as safeguard themselves.
Sgt Davowah highlighted some of the measures in reducing human interaction and appealed for the use of facemasks and the washing of hands at all times.
He said it is mandatory to wash hands at market entry and exit points and for buyers and traders to put on their face masks before entering the market.
“There is also need for one-way flow of traffic in the market with dedicated entry and exit points. Similar commodities should be sold in the same area to enhance the one directional flow of people”, he further recommended
He said engagements with Drivers’ Union and Traders’ Union Marshalls as well as Market monitors and NaCOVERC team will hopefully ensure compliance with the enhanced rules and regulations put in place.
The National COVID-19 Emergency Response Center will continue to work with other partners including market chairladies, to institute social distancing measures in markets throughout the Hastings environs in the fight to stop the coronavirus that is ravaging the world including Sierra Leone.
Sierra Leone recorded its first case of corona virus on 31st March 2020. The country has gone to recorded over two thousand five hundred cases with seventy two deaths. Over one thousand five hundred people have survived the virus and over three hundred people are in quarantine and undergoing observation.
