Coronavirus: Accra Girls' SHS students picket as worried parents storm school to take their wards home

Students of Accra Girls’ Senior High School are picketing this morning as part of their efforts to put pressure on the management of the school to allow them to go home following reports that six of their colleagues have contracted COVID-19.

The anxious and fear-gripped students have clustered and massed up at the schools’ premises waiting for their worried parents to come and convey them home.

Police officers have stormed the school’s premises to restore calm.

The students who gathered outside their classrooms kept chanting “We’ll go home.”

Speaking to CTV’s Fred Alvis, a parent said: “I heard the news last night so I rushed here to find out what was happening...I'm anxious and scared and so we need the school authorities to tell us something”

Although schools were closed down across the country after the outbreak of the deadly virus, final year Junior and Senior High School students were directed to return to school on Monday, 22 June 2020 to prepare for their final examinations.

Final year university students were also directed to return to school on Monday, 5 June 2020.

Ghana’s COVID-19 caseload has crossed the 20,000-mark after the confirmation of 697 new cases, the Ghana Health Service has reported.

Ghana’s total caseload is now 20,085 as of Sunday, 5 July 2020.

The samples were taken between June 16 and July 1, 2020, according to the GHS.

Also, five more have died from the disease taking the total death toll to 122.

The total number of active cases is now 5,093.

The number of patients who have recovered and discharged also stands at 14,870.

While the condition of 22 patients is severe, that of eight others is critical.

The Greater Accra still tops the list with 10,979 cases, out of which 2,501 are active while the Ashanti Region has a total of 4,244 cases.