Students can contract coronavirus at home if allowed to leave schools – Okoe Boye

A Deputy Minister for Health, Dr. Bernard Okoe Boye, has defended the government’s decision to continue keeping students in schools.

According to him, while some second cycle institutions have recorded Coronavirus cases, it’s not advisable to close down schools.

He explained that, should students be allowed to leave school now, some may even contact the virus at their various homes.

“I have to check with the Ghana Education Service on their protocols and on their statutes on letting students go home but the advice I can give as a public health person is that when you pick your child from school and say you are taking your child home, remember the virus is at home, the virus is at the workplace and the virus is on the street. The best bet is to take care of yourself because your child might actually be exposed more,” Dr. Okoe Boye said on Citi FM’s Eyewitness News Monday.

“Imagine if you have a parent who is a taxi driver who comes across 200 people before he goes home or imagine a parent who sells at Makola or myself who moves from one hospital to the other, the virus is around. We all can expose our kids. That’s why all of us must take care of ourselves so we don’t carry the virus home.”

This follows calls from the National Council of Parent-Teacher Associations of Ghana for the government to close down schools and allow students to return home.

Some Senior High Schools have recorded Coronavirus in recent weeks, causing parents to panic.

The Accra Technical University was the first to record a case after a National Service Personnel contracted the virus.

The Ghana Education Service has also disclosed 55 students and staff at the Accra Girls SHS have tested positive for COVID-19.

Meanwhile, over five secondary schools in the Western region have also had their students infected.