President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has warned of a possible second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic that could send the nation into another lockdown.
He indicated that if the number of active cases continue to increase at the current rate he will have no option but to reimpose the partial lockdown and other restrictions.
The President gave the warning in his update No. 22 Sunday evening on measures the government has taken against the spread of the Coronavirus.
He disclosed there has been an upsurge in the number of new cases from a little over 900 to 1,924 in just two weeks.
Health facilities, he said, have gone from having zero patients to now being full because of the upsurge in infections.
He said, “Particularly worrying is that the Ghana Health Service is recording an average of 200 Covid-19 infections daily.”
“The number of patients requiring hospitalization and intensive care is rising. The number of severe cases, which stood at 18 a week ago has increased sharply to 120. Two weeks ago there were no critical cases but we now have 33 in our treatment facilities.”
“Again, according to statistics from the Ghana health Service, the considerable number of persons who are severely ill are surprisingly, relatively youthful patients with no previous underlining health conditions.”
“The number of confirmed deaths has also increased sadly from 338 persons to 352 within the period.”
President Akufo-Addo stated that detailed investigations of the increase in cases indicate apart from infected passengers arriving into the country, those who tested positive are persons who attended parties, weddings, end-of-year office programmes and family get-togethers and funerals but abandoned the use of the face mask and defied other safety protocols.
13 out of the 16 regions, he said, have recorded active cases and warned the health infrastructure will be overwhelmed if the situation persists.
The President stated that as his duty to protect lives and livelihoods, he has instructed the Inspector General of Police to direct officers to ensure rigorous enforcement of the law on mask wearing at all public places and public transport.
“They are also to ensure the closure of all nightclubs, pubs and beaches that may be operating in defiance of the law. They will be assisted by the other security agencies if needs be,” he added.
He urged owners of workplaces and operators of public transports to conduct their activities in accordance with hygiene and safety protocols and warned mask wearing in these places is mandatory.
Regulatory agencies, he said, will undertake random checks to ensure conformity with the Covid-19 protocols and warned facilities or institutions that would flout the directives will be shut down and the appropriate sanctions applied.