Ellen praises Weah

Former president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has given a thumb’s up to the George Weah’s government for its handling of the coronavirus pandemic here, saying they had learned lesson from the country’s 2014 Ebola crisis.“Liberia`s response to COVID-19 is as good as it can be with the available resources that they have. They have already put into place the necessary protocols, using the examples of Ebola,” former president Sirleaf told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour in a recent interview.

Mrs. Sirleaf further told her host that the government has established a coordinating mechanism, as her regime did in 2014 during the Ebola crisis. “And I believe they`ve started to mobilize partnership support by reaching out to their major bilateral, multilateral partners who are responding,” she continued.

The former president also did not hold back her satisfaction over the low level of confirmed coronavirus cases in the country so far.“We`re very pleased that our numbers have continued to remain small. Our effort despite our inadequacies in resources have been as robust as they can be.” Said Mrs. Sirleaf. However, despite the heap of praises, Mrs. Sirleaf fears that an explosion in the number of cases as is being predicted in some places is a cause for concer.

“I think our biggest concern would be should we have a spread as has been predicted in some places, we will not have the means to respond adequately to fight it,” Mrs. Sirleaf bemoaned. Meanwhile, Mrs. Sirleaf also believes that a global effort can be a strong force in combating the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We must all come together with a strong call for equity when it comes to the means to combat the virus. It was Ebola. Today it`s COVID. Tomorrow it`s likely to be something else. A global remedy that may come from vaccines of other measures (should) also be seen as a global good, with access to everyone.”

The former president stressed that global collaboration was essential in the response to Ebola, “This was an extraordinary effort of alliance, cooperation, collective action and I hope that that`s what we`ll see from COVID-19. That we`re going to see global alliances improve, more collaboration. We live today in an unequal world. And COVID-19, I hope, will lead to consciousness, to promising action, to reduce the inequities of the world.”

Sirleaf also cautioned that this global cooperation must continue as the world recovers economically, “We hope that the developed world is going to respond to and see that by supporting Africa to recover, not only from this, but recover from the economic fallout that we know is going to be our greatest challenge, we expect that their response would be one that will ensure a better Africa, but in return, and show that they too are safer in a developed world.”