Ghana now a reference point in handling Covid-19 pandemic – Akufo-Addo

President Akufo-Addo said Ghana has now become a reference point for many countries in the management of Covid-19 pandemic.

According to him, out of a population of about 31 million, 254,331 individuals have been tested for the virus in the last three months.

This figure, he said, remains one of the highest Covid-19 tests to have been conducted on the African continent.

As of June 13, Ghana’s Covid-19 case count stands at 11,964 with a total of 4,258 patients fully recovered and have been discharged.

In his 11th address to the nation on measures taken against the spread of the virus, the president pegged the country’s ratio of positive cases to total tests conducted at 4.7% and the Covid-19 mortality rate at 0.4%.

”Our positivity rate, i.e. the ratio of positive cases to total tests conducted, stands at 4.7%. In our hospitals and isolation centres, we currently have 13 persons severely ill, six persons critically ill, with three persons on ventilators,” he indicated.

”The number of Covid-19 related deaths, sad though each death is, continues to remain very low, one of the lowest in Africa and the world.

“With 54 deaths currently reported by the Ghana Health Service thus far in Ghana, the ratio of deaths to positive cases stands at 0.4%, compared to the global average of 5.5%, and the African average of 2.6%” he added.

In May 2020, the French News Agency (AFP) described as false President Akufo-Addo’s claim that Ghana “has administered more tests per million people than any other country in Africa.”

According to AFP, it has found from available statistics that Ghana is behind South Africa and at least two other African countries.

But President Akufo-Addo said, “The number of severe and critically ill also continues to be low. I am relating all these figures not to engender any false, feel-good factor, but as statements of fact, that must provide the context for us when we examine our figures.”

“If indeed, we are to be guided by the data, then we must look at the data in all its ramifications, not just one particular aspect of them. That is the proper way to do justice to the data.”

He, however, called for more discipline in adherence to the personal hygiene and social distancing measures as government continues to ease the restrictions imposed on the nation to deal with the pandemic.