Ghana will not record 15,000 coronavirus deaths or 3 million infections – Dr Nsiah Asare

Health advisor to the president, Dr Nsiah Asare has made a U-turn in his earlier prediction that there will be a major surge in Ghana’s coronavirus case count and the number of fatalities to be recorded in the coming weeks.

According to the former Director-General of the Ghana Health Service, his arguments were purely hypothetical and based on information from the World Health Organisation as regards a country that sits aloof and watches the virus spread.

Dr Nsiah Asare in the interview in question is quoted to have said that, “We expect that about 10 per cent of the population may be infected and out of the 10 per cent of the population 80 per cent may not show signs or symptoms at all and 5 per cent of them will be very ill. That’s the projection.”

With Ghana’s population hovering around 30 million, translations were made in the following regard that, 10 per cent of the population represents approximately 3 million people and 5 per cent represents 150,000 Ghanaians and out of the 150,000 people whose cases will be critical, 10 per cent will be fatal.

Meaning 15,000 persons will lose their lives. According to several Ghanaians, Dr Nsia Asare’s argument appeared controversial and an affront to efforts to restore calm amongst Ghanaians.

To many, this only confirms allegations that the government has been suppressing data on case count.

But Dr Nsiah Asare has clarified his argument and written it off as another case of misreporting.

At the Minister’s press briefing, Wednesday, April 22, 2020, Dr Nsiah Asare said his argument was strictly based on hypothetical information given by the World Health Organisation and does not relate to Ghana’s situation because the government has so far taken the necessary and appropriate precautionary measures to avert any such occurrence.

“…yesterday I was at Joy TV and I gave a hypothesis which is the hypothesis the WHO gave out which is based on the population the WHO gave out which is based on the population of the country and that’s the hypothesis I gave that if Ghana stayed without doing anything at all, that’s what will happen to us as a country thus, 10 per cent of the population being infected and 20 per cent getting sick…but I said that’s the case in Africa.”

“In fact based on the data that we have, we have realized that our actual figures are far below what the WHO has quoted. It is because when we saw what the WHO had quoted we were a bit scared so we put a lot of things in place…”

He has advised Ghanaians to keep calm and remain resolute in the measure taken by the government because 15,000 deaths or 3 million infections will not be recorded in the coming weeks.

As it stands now, Ghana has recorded a total of 1,154 with 120 recoveries.