Gov’t Proud of 566 Covid-19 Confirmations -Despite Being Fasted growing Coronavirus epicentre

The Akufo Addo administration is patting itself on the back for being able to detect 566 Covid-19 coronavirus cases in Ghana in exactly one month, despite the fact that Ghana’s is

According to the Minister of Information, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, had the government not stepped up its contact tracing and testing strategy, it would not have detected that much Covid-19 patients in the country.

 “It is interesting to note that if we hadn’t as a country stepped up our approach to be ahead and go after the virus we would be reporting only 292 cases by now. The mix of measures to aggressively go in search of it while limiting importation is the reason for which we have found 274 more cases,” Mr. Oppong-Nkrumah explained.

“The enhanced tracking and testing coupled with the mandatory quarantine systems are yielding results. Had we not adopted this approach, the 274 extra will be with us potentially continuously spreading the virus. We encourage all persons to comply with the measures and spread more knowledge and facts to help us all,” the Minister tweeted in one of the most curious attempts to earn praise.

Data however, shows that Ghana’s trajectory of infections within exactly one month is the highest globally, except for China and Italy which hold the record for the highest spike within one month of the first reported Covid-19 patient.

“This is worth repeating:  compared to all countries reporting confirmed cases of Covid-19 in the first 30 days, Ghana is ahead of all countries except Italy, Spain, France and China.  This means by day 30, Ghana is ahead of all African, European, North American, South American, and Asian countries, and Australia except for Italy and China,” explained Alhaji Haruna Rashid Ibrahim, a statistician following the trend of Covid-19 data in Ghana.

“ …The data suggests that Covid-19 cases have not peaked yet.  Therefore, we cannot contemplate flattening the curve.  This also means that Ghana is not ahead of the curve.  In fact, the data suggests that government responses and actions to stop the spread of Covid-19 is ineffective and not working.”

Comparatively, the United States currently has over 573,000 Covid-19 cases with more than 22,000 deaths, yet, when the USA recorded its first case on January 22, 2020, it took it two full months before its numbers spiked to 500 cases.

Ghana’s one-month record also beats other big epicentres of the pandemic such as Germany (currently at 128,000 infections with Patient One to Patient 500 spanning January 28 to March 10, 2020); the UK (currently at 88,621 patients) with its first patient in January 31 spiking to 500 patients on March 12, 2020.

Epicentres like Belgium (30,589 patients), Turkey (61,049 patients), Netherlands (26,000 patients), Canada (25,000 patients), etc., all took longer than one month to clock 500 patients. Despite their superior health infrastructure in comparison to Ghana’s their current numbers have exploded to tens of thousands of Covid-19 patients.

Critics think with the gloomy statistics globally, the Akufo Addo administration may be misplacing its priorities by assuming it is doing a good job with containment.

There are speculations that the government may be hiding the true numbers of infections in Ghana as President Akufo Addo announced last Thursday that his administration will take a second look at its containment strategies after testing 10,000 people.