'3,232 coronavirus cases would've gone undetected' - Akufo-Addo

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has said but for his government’s “proactive” manner of handling tracing, testing and treating COVID-19 patients, Ghana would have, so far, been able to detect only 1,413 cases instead of the current 4,700.

The President noted in his Sunday address to the nation on the coronavirus situation: “We must understand that the more people we test for the virus, the more persons we will discover as positive and thus, have the opportunity to isolate and treat them. If you do not test people for the virus, you will not find the persons who are positive, let alone isolate them from the population and treat them and prevent them from spreading the virus”.

“Indeed”, he pointed out, “had we not been proactive in undertaking enhanced contact-tracing of infected persons and had relied solely on testing people who reported to the hospital, which is the practice followed by some other countries, routine testing, our total case count would have stood at 1,413. The other 3,232, two-thirds of the population of positives, would have been undetected and still be within the population, unknowingly infecting others”.

“I know some political actors would want you to believe that our current numbers represent a failure on the part of the government. Do not begrudge them. They need to make such comments for their political survival. On the contrary, we must be emboldened by the knowledge that the 4,700 persons infected so far with the virus, have been identified, isolated, and are being treated”, the President added.

Meanwhile, he said the daily numbers of confirmed cases have started falling as of Friday, 8 May 2020.

He said all backlogs of samples have been clear, paving the way for the country to have current numbers on a daily basis.

“Reporting of cases since Friday, 8 May 2020 is now current. On Friday, a total of 5,253 tests were conducted with 251 positives; on Saturday, 2, 255 tests were conducted with 256 found to be positive. For today, Sunday, 10 May 2020, a total of 3,045 tests have been done with 160 testing positive.

“These relatively lower daily numbers of infection are welcome and reinforce the fact that the measures taken to help reduce person to person contact and help defeat the pandemic, are working”, the President said.

“So, as of today, Sunday, 10 May 2020, the country has conducted a total of 160,501 tests with our total number of infections standing at 4,700; 494 recoveries, five persons being critically ill and 4, 179 persons responding to treatment.

“Twenty-two person, virtually all of them with underlying illnesses such as hypertension, diabetes and chronic liver disease, have unhappily died”.