Coronavirus: All infected students have either recovered or doing well - Akufo-Addo

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has said all the students who tested positive for COVID-19 have either recovered or are doing well recovering.

In his 14th address to the nation on the COVID-19 situation, Mr Akufo-Addo said on Sunday, 26 July 2020 that: “Since the last time I addressed the nation, we have seen over seven hundred and fifty thousand persons, comprising students, teachers and non-teaching staff, in our Junior High Schools returning to school to prepare for and sit the Basic Education Certificate Examination”.

“Last Monday, the three hundred and seventy thousand final year SHS students, who have been in school for five weeks, started writing the West African Senior Secondary School Certificate Examination”.

“One hundred and twenty-seven thousand, one hundred and forty-three (127,143) students in our Universities and other tertiary institutions have now all virtually completed their final examinations”, he noted.

He said the “safety and good health of the students and staff have been the paramount considerations in the reopening of schools, and we have, therefore, insisted on full adherence to the enhanced COVID-19 protocols”.

That is why, he explained, “as has already been widely publicised, we undertook a massive mobilisation and deployment of logistics to our educational facilities to help ensure that learning is conducted in an atmosphere of safety, as we continue to limit and contain the spread of the virus in our country”.

The President said “all of these reiterate the commitment of the government to protecting the lives of all those involved in the phased re-openings of our schools, and I will not renege on my obligation toward either our children or their parents”.

“Mercifully”, he said, “we have witnessed only a few cases of infections in our universities and other tertiary institutions; the few students who tested positive in a few of our Senior High Schools have all either recovered or are on the path to full recovery, and will write the WASSCE; and the few final year Junior High School students, who have tested positive and who are largely asymptomatic, are being managed in isolation centres”.

The government, the President noted, “continues to engage with the stakeholders in the education sector to determine the conditions for the future re-opening of schools, after the current examinations are concluded by mid-September”.

“I will keep you fully informed about the outcomes”, he promised.