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HealthPolitics News

Cummings makes an international appeal

-offers to work with Gov’t in coronavirus crisis

The leader of the opposition Alternative National Congress (ANC) Mr. Alexander B. Cummings has begun an international appeal for help as the coronavirus rages in Liberia.

Mr. Cummings also offers to work with the government in whatever reasonable way in tackling the resurgence, which experts say is the Delta variant.

He says the Cummings Africa Foundation is open to working with authorities at the Ministry of Health to identify urgent gaps in the national response to yield quick interventions.

Currently, in the United States where he has held high-level meetings, he discloses that he is immediately returning home to join the fight.

“I promise, I will not allow you to take this difficult road alone. I have already put together a team of advisors who are now working out modalities for our modest but genuine intervention”, he reveals and sends out SOS call to the international community, especially the United States, the European Union, and all friendly nations of the world, for much-needed help with vaccines, medical supplies, ventilators, and other support for hospitals and community clinics across the country.https://thenewdawnliberia.com/special-statement-from-alexander-b-cummings-on-the-covid-situation-in-liberia/

Meanwhile, Cummings has frowned on the President George Weahs absence from the country saying in the midst of pandemic chaos and existential threat to the lives of Liberians, the president without any conscience and sense of responsibility to the people, has left the country on his usual private jet to Ghana.

He says at the moment, the President should cancel all further travels and remain in the country to lead the fight until the prevailing health situation is handled.

“There is no time for politics here. I call on President Weah to LEAD. That is why the people of this country gave him their votes in 2017. They entered a social contract with him to protect them and change their lives. He cannot continue to abandon that responsibility. He cannot continue to lead from the back as has been the case since his ascendancy. At this difficult time, we demand compassionate and prudent leadership, which is clearly lacking”, Mr. Cummings demands in a statement on the resurgence of the Coronavirus herewith confirmed cases hitting nearly 4,000 and over a hundred deaths.

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Liberia’s chief medical officer and deputy minister of health, Doctor Francis Kate, puts the daily infection rate at more than 3 percent with 11 counties already affected.

In a statement issued Wednesday, June 23, 2021, the ANC leaders who are seeking to stop the Weah administration to one term at the ballot box through four Collaborating Political Parties (CPP) says instead of the government working overtime to address the urgent health threat, it will find excuses for failure, as usual, saying “They will childishly argue that even some powerful countries around the world were overwhelmed by the virus, and how about a poor country like Liberia? But I tell them, that there are many more countries in the world that prioritized their people by taking scientific and social measures to arrest the virus in its tracks, thus sparing their people the tragedy we face today.”

He notes that even as Liberians troupe to get vaccinated, they are being turned away as the vaccines are being rationed, only due to the fact that of the 123,000 vaccines donated to the country, 27,000 donated by the AU expired in two weeks upon delivery due to very low demand from the public, he says is about 20% of much-needed vaccines that could have been used in less than a week, but expired, further pointing that even those being tested now, have to wait up to 5-7 days to get their results, which is unacceptable.

Mr. Cummings says he does not believe recent public measures announced by the government are enough to address the seriousness of the difficulty the country currently faces. “We need to act more fully to mobilize the nation to take the actions that are required to end the spread”, he urges.

Among others, he calls for the recasting of the national budget to provide funding for the purchase of beds, PPEs, masks, vaccines, ventilators, oxygen, and massive awareness.

He wants the government to solicit additional support from citizens in the diaspora, international partners, and the donor community.

The presidential hopeful stressed the need to increase hazard pay of existing health workers and employ more health workers and contact tracers.

He continues that government should immediately close schools and ensures completion of the semester from home, pending the end of the crisis.

He calls for setting up a hotline where people who have families or friends with severe symptoms of COVID can call for help and can be linked to the nearest isolation or health center or monitored from home, but rejects any plan to bring in paramilitary forces, noting, “We are at war with COVID and not ourselves.” ttps://thenewdawnliberia.com/cummings-makes-demands/. Story by Jonathan Browne

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NewDawn

The New Dawn is Liberia’s Truly Independent Newspaper Published by Searchlight Communications Inc. Established on November 16, 2009, with its first hard copy publication on January 22, 2010. The office is located on UN Drive in Monrovia Liberia. The New Dawn is bilingual (both English & French).
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