Ghana now has a 75 per cent COVID-19 recovery rate, following the recuperation of 10,907 patients as of yesterday, the Director-General of the Ghana Health Service (GHS), Dr Patrick Kuma-Aboagye has revealed.
At the COVID-19 press briefing in Accra yesterday, he said all the patients in three out of the 16 administrative regions in the country; Savannah, Northern and Upper West, numbering 37, 61 and 35 respectively, had recovered.
According to him, the majority of the recovered patients were from the Greater Accra Region, where 76 per cent of its 8,075 cases, the highest in the country, had recovered.
He said about 67 per cent of the 2, 867cases in Ashanti had recovered; almost half of Bono East’s 33 cases were free of the virus with Central recording 83 per cent recovery of 794 cases and Eastern, 56 per cent of 400 cases.
Dr Kuma-Aboagye disclosed that the rest of the regions including the Upper East, Volta Region, Western, and Western North had recovery rates ranging between 96 and eight per cent.
“Those who have recovered are free of the virus and they will not be able to transmit the virus to any other person. We isolate only patients who can transmit the virus”, he said and urged the public to not stigmatise them.
Of the 95 people that have died so far, he said majority of them were males more than 60 years with only three per cent less than 15 years, adding that comorbidity was responsible for their demise.
For his part, the Minister of Information, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, said the government was engaging the Ghana Police Service to ensure a “purposive” interpretation of Executive Instrument (E.I 164) on wearing of nose mask.
That, he said, would help lay to rest concerns over whether persons who ride in their private vehicles alone were supposed to wear the mask or not following some confrontation between police and drivers.
Signed by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo on June 15, 2020, in line with powers granted him by Imposition of Restrictions Act, 2020 (Act 1012), the EI is part of measures to control the spread of COVID -19 in the country.
Per the law, people who do not wear face masks in public could be sentenced to jail terms from four to 10 years or pay a fine between GH¢12,000 and GH¢60,000.
Mr Oppong Nkrumah said the engagement with the police had become important because the government wanted to ensure that the intention behind the law, which was to stop the spread of the virus, was not defeated.
Responding to concerns that the fine was hash, he said it had been instituted to deter people from flouting the law, stating that “The mere fact that the sanctions are there, would make people comply”
BY JONATHAN DONKOR
