Coronavirus: There are more unrecorded cases among the poor – Napo

Over the months, thousands of COVID-19 cases have been recorded all across Ghana and as it stands now, out of a total of 39,642 confirmed cases, 36,384 people have either recovered or been discharged, 199 people have died and there still stands 3,059 active cases of which 567 are new.

Ghana’s Minister of Education, Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh has disclosed that aside from the recorded case counts of COVID-19 on the Ghana Health Service website, there are still a lot of cases of active, recovered and dead people that remain unrecorded.

Dr. Opoku Prempeh, during a live interview in the studios of Happy 98.9 FM with host, Samuel Eshun on the Happy Morning Show, said that most people who are seen roaming around town in chop bars, beer bars and the likes, without any agenda, and turning a deaf ear to precautionary measures, are the same ones who say that the virus is for rich people.

However, per his knowledge, these same people due to their ignorance and defiance, are contracting the virus in even greater numbers but these cases are not among the recorded because they do not visit testing centres or report when there are traces of COVID-19 symptoms.

“I spoke to one MP friend of mine and he told me that in his vicinity, which is the Muslim community, because people are buried right after they die, a lot are dying and no one cares; so much that it even bothers him sometimes”, he said.

This is to say that in the Muslim or rural and slum communities, people die and they are buried immediately, hence as to whether or not they died of the Coronavirus, no one is aware.

The Minister further commented and advised that “People still have the misconception that COVID-19 is a rich man’s disease but the poor are dying more than the rich. Everyone is prone to COVID-19".