Ghanaquest.com brings you another weekend’s quick wrap of some top issues that made headlines in the past week. Like in recent times, the week has been a buid up on issues related to the novel coronavirus pandemic.
This week started with what one will call, a surprising move from the presidency; the lifting of the 3 weeks lockdown in the COVID-19 affected hotspot zones of Greater Accra, Kasoa and parts of the Ashanti region.
Hitherto, almost everyone, including former president John Mahama thought the country was going to see an extension of the lockdown even with additions. In what has become his regular write-ups in lockdown, the flagbearer of the NDC said “Many health experts continue to suggest the necessity and appropriateness of an extension of the restrictions on movement”. Now, let’s have a look at the issues that made it for this week’s wrap.
The Numbers; Coronavirus
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Before we go into the other issues for the week’s wrap, let’s first of all have a look at Ghana’s case count of Covid-19 with a highlight once more on the numbers for Accra. As at 08:53hrs, the numbers stood at 1,279 with 10 deaths and 134 recoveries. The numbers however for the regions shows that Accra still stands as the region with the highest number of recorded cases with a total of 1,089 recorded cases. So far, only four out of the 16 regions have not yet recorded any case of the COVID-19 disease. These are the Bono, Bono-East, Savannah and Ahafo regions. Like we always end this part of the week’s wrap; “Accra needs to be extra-careful”
President lifts lockdown
The debates days after has had to do with the fact that it was a timely intervention or it was just a wrong decision to be done. Many were actually surprised by the move as they expected another week or two of extension with updates in government’s interventions like the food sharing. Experts and citizens have been divided in the opinion divide of “good and timely” and “bad” decisions. The fear of any has been the tendencies for the disease to spread more, questioning Ghana’s charge of the disease’s spread. The President on the other hand whiles delivering his speech Sunday night indicated that the country is now strongly relying on our discipline. He said “Discipline, self-discipline, is that strong bridge that all of us, from the safety of our homes, in our workplaces, and in our communities, must build. We need to build a strong bridge of self-discipline in order for us to cross over from this difficult period of restrictions and the spread of the Coronavirus to the other side, where total freedom to go about our normal lives awaits us. To defeat the virus, and get there, we have to accept that we have to wash our hands, maintain good hygiene, refrain from shaking hands, wear our masks, and practice social distancing in all of our engagements”
Read : JUST IN: President, Nana Akufo-Addo lifts PARTIAL LOCK DOWN in Ghana.
Read Also: Full text of Akufo-Addo’s 7th address on coronavirus
Wearing Nose Masks in Accra is Now Compulsory
A directive the came from the Regional Security Counsil of the Greater-Accra Region under the auspices of the regional minister, Hon. Ashitey amongst other things directed that the wearing of nose mask in the capital was now compulsory for all. Citizens are thus mandated by this to make sure that in line with keeping to the precautionary measures outlined to help prevent contracting the COVID-19 disease, the wearing of nose masks is now compulsory.
Read: REGSEC – Makes Wearing of face mask mandatory now.
Minister’s Press Briefing
On Wednesday, the Minister’s Press Briefing which goes on at the Ministry of information regularly was organized this time to give updates and clarity on the controversies that have surrounded Ghana’s data collected so far. The argument has primarily had to do with the information being gathered from clusters than single cases and all. Some have also questioned what seems like the churning out of wrong information and all.
At Thursday’s press briefing, minister for food and agriculture, Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto once more admonished the nation to desist from panic buying as there were enough stocks that does not necessitate such buying an price hikes.
The 3 Million Projection
We’ll end this week’s wrap with some interactions in relation to Ghana’s Covid-19 cases. Presidential advisor on health, Dr. Anthony Nsiah-Asare, revealed that studies that have been conducted revealed that some 3 million –coming out of an estimated 30 million population- people were going to be infected by the COVID-19 disease in Ghana. According to this projection, some 5% of the number –some 150, 000 out of the 3 million- will fall seriously ill. He however clarified that of the projection on the “critically ill” group of the 3 million infections might not happen as projected because the cases Ghana is seeing are very little. “I you look at the cases that we are seeing, the cases that re getting important are extremely, really little” he said.
Dr. Nsiah-Asare however clarified this matter at Wednesday’s Covid-19 press briefing saying ““I gave a hypothesis that WHO put out which is based on the population of the country. And I said that if Ghana stays without doing anything at all, that is what will happen to us as a country; 10% of the population being infected and 20% getting sick and about 5% getting very seriously ill. But I said that that is not the case in Africa. Based on the facts and data that we have, we have realized that our actual figures are far below what WHO has quoted. And it’s because we’ve put a lot of things in place to prevent the spread,”
Read: 3 million Ghanaians will test positive for coronavirus – President’s advisor on health predicts
