Ghana confirmed COVID-19 cases crosses 2000

On Thursday April 30, 2020, when the Ghana Health Service gave an update of the confirmed COVID-19 cases in Ghana, the figure has shot up to 2,074, 10 days after the partial lockdown was lifted.

Some areas of the country had been put under a three-week lockdown to control the spread of the virus.

Unlike other countries where lockdowns were lifted after the infection numbers have gone down, the lifting of the lockdown in parts of the country, including the hotspot – the capital, Accra, other factors informed the decision, even though at that time the country has recorded 1,042 cases.

The President justified the lifting of the lockdown thus: “In view of our ability to undertake aggressive contact tracing 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 of 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 on 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 its contiguous districts, with effect from 1am on Monday, 20th April,” he said.

The current update says 17 people have died and 212 have recovered.