The prevention of coronavirus from entering the terrain of Sierra Leone has been the subject of prayer points in many churches and Mosques all over the country. The unceasing prayers performed by pious pastors and holy imams to avert the virus from coming to the country could not come to fruitful as Sierra Leone despite robust measures mounted by the government to prevent the virus from invading the country has finally recorded a case of coronavirus from one 37 years old, Alphajor Jalloh who was reported to have traveled from France with Brussels airline on the 16th March 2020, quarantined at Lungi airport and later taking to Companero hotel where he was diagnosed positive of the coronavirus.
It could be reflected that one of the strident measures lay down by the government to prevent the virus from entering the country is the suspension of international flights from landing into the countries only international airport, which was an excellent preventive measure as it helped in averting the risk of transporting the virus from Asia, America and Europe to Sierra Leone. However, it, unfortunately, turned out that the very international flights that were suspended happened to be the carrier of the virus to the country.
Many Sierra Leoneans are worried over the president announcement of Sierra Leone recording the first case of the coronavirus, considering the fact that the current economic status of the country is in a complete state of shambles, as many are of the opinion that an outbreak of such a nature in the country will continue to dilapidate the already shattered economy of the country.
However, although the president categorically stated in his statement that he does not imply a lockdown has been slammed, yet many Sierra Leoneans are with the anticipation and trepidation that in the condition where the situation continues to deteriorate speedily, the government may be left with no other alternative but to respond rapidly by announcing additional enhanced measures that may lead to a lockdown.
The covenant newspaper is of the strong conviction that a situation of a lockdown will not augur well for the ordinary Sierra Leonean who solely depends on “hand to mot” survival for their daily living and that the government and international partners must ensure that appropriate measures are put in place to provide the people with basic facilities and provision before the announcement of a lockdown by the government so that those that are poverty vulnerable will seize the opportunity to survive during the corona challenge.
Again, the covenant newspaper is also of the opinion that the outbreak of the coronavirus in Sierra Leone will gravely affect the economy of the country thereby increasing the cost of living by inflating the prices of essential commodities in the markets.
Unlike the Ernest Bai Koroma’s Ebola episode in which the country’s economy was claimed to be one of the fastest-growing economies in the world, president Bio’s corona era is characterized with a massive economic crunch that has the inclination to put the economy into a state of economic collapse, therefore many are pessimistic over the survival of the Sierra Leone economy in the event of the coronavirus as it has the potential to drive away from the handful investors that manage to pay their taxes to the government coffer. Besides, this development will also result in snail pace the development projects that are in the pipeline to be implemented in the country by government and international partners as most of these programs will be at a standstill resultant on the outbreak of the coronavirus in the country.
