Ghana lifted its lockdown order in the country last week and now they have experienced a tremendous increase in the number of daily cases of COVID-19 in the country. The country has now recorded over a thousand additional cases since then.
Ghana’s president, Nana Akufo-Addo order last week that the three-week lockdown has been eased on the basis of “improved coronavirus testing”.
The Ghanaian president had said non-essential businesses in Accra and Kumasi could reopen but under guidelines of social distancing.
He said Ghanaians should make use of face masks in public places.
“In view of our ability to undertake aggressive contact of infected persons, the enhancement of our capacity to test, the expansion in the numbers of our treatment and isolation centres, our better understanding of the dynamism of the virus, the ramping up our domestic capacity to produce our own personal protective equipment, sanitisers and medicines, the modest successes chalked at containing the spread of the virus in Accra and Kumasi, and the severe impact of the poor and vulnerable, I have taken the decision to lift the three-week-old restriction on movements in the Greater Accra Metropolitan Area and Kasoa, and the Greater Kumasi Metropolitan Area and the contiguous districts, with effect from 1am on Monday, 20th April,” he had said.
The country had recorded only 1,042 cases on April 19 when the lockdown was eased across Ghana. They also had 99 recoveries on record.
However, figures from the Ghana’s ministry of health on Thursday showed that the country currently has 2,074 confirmed cases of COVID-19, out of which 212 recoveries and 17 deaths have been recorded.
This implies an increase of 1,032 cases since the lockdown was lifted.
Ghana is the first country in the West African region to lift the restriction on movement.
Similarly, Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari had announced the partial reopening of the country’s economy after five weeks of lockdown.
A nationwide curfew is expected to commence on May 4, while a ban on school activities and religious gatherings will remain.
