Ahead of President George’s sixth annual message on January 30, 2023, before the Legislature, the Ministry of Information, Cultural Affairs and Tourism (MICAT) disclosed achievements by the administration.
MICAT, in a Facebook post, said
- 80% of Liberians are Vaccinated against COVID-19
- Liberia is the 3rd best-performing country in containing COVID-19 in West Africa.
- 7th best in Africa containing COVID-19.
Liberia confirmed the first case of COVID-19 on March 16, 2020, and in April 2020.
President George Weah declared a nationwide state of emergency with mandatory lockdown in several regions, including the capital, Monrovia, to combat the spread of the coronavirus.
Following the COVID-19 outbreaks in Liberia and the identification of vaccinations as a COVID-19 control method, Liberia entered the COVAX vaccines facility, a platform made available by Gavi for low- and middle-income countries to access vaccine supplies.
The Government, in coordination with the United Nations (UN), Donor Partners, the Ministry of Health, and the National Public Health Institute of Liberia (NPHIL), put in place the National Multi-sectoral Response Plan (NMRP) for COVID-19.
WHO supports Liberia’s initial National Deployment and Vaccine Plan (NDVP) for the COVID-19 Vaccine and adoption of the guidelines, SOPs, and other training materials and eventual vaccine use.
Liberia has received 1,303,200 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine from the COVAX facility and other donors. Of these, 288,000 doses were of AstraZeneca, while 1,015,200 were of Johnson and Johnson products.
Out of 400,893 vaccinated with J & J, 69,705 were fully vaccinated with AstraZeneca.
As of January 20, 2023, about the time the claims were made, there have been 663,640,386 confirmed cases of COVID-19, including 6,713,093 deaths, reported to the World Health Organization (WHO).
The WHO shows that as of January 17, 2023, 13,131,550,798 vaccine doses have been administered, which amounts to 73.77 percent of the Liberian population.
On the claim that Liberia has the 3rd best performance in containing COVID-19 in West Africa and 7th best in Africa.
Research done by TSM did not show any data that Liberia has the 3rd best performance in containing COVID-19 in West Africa and 7th best in Africa.
The Africa Report quoted Lowy Institute graded Rwanda, Togo, and Tunisia as the African countries that have responded best to Covid, far ahead of South Africa and especially many rich countries.
Additionally, according to the World Street Journal January 1, 2021 publication about countries that have responded best to Covid-19, Taiwan showed up as the best.
Liberia was listed as Best at learning from recent epidemics.
However, nowhere is Liberia named as the 3rd best performance in containing COVID-19 in West Africa and the 7th best in Africa.
Screenshots from World Health Organization and Wikipedia show different figures
Conclusion: Though Liberia has made progress in the fight against the Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) but research done, it is safe to say that the claims
- 80% of Liberians are Vaccinated against COVID-19
- Liberia is the 3rd best-performing country in containing COVID-19 in West Africa.
7th best in Africa containing COVID-19 are False.
