Patrick Awuah, the founder and president of Ashesi University, has said that he is extremely impressed with Ghana’s coronavirus recovery rate.
He was speaking to Kwaku Sakyi-Addo on Asaase Radio’s Sunday Night about a wide range of topics, including education, COVID-19 and his own life.
“You have the United States, where we have got over five million cases now and over 150,000 deaths, and you have got Ghana and other places,” he said.
“For Ghana, one of the things that stands out for me is that the recovery rate is very high. And there are some countries like that – [for example,] Singapore and Qatar, which has a lower mortality rate, just as Ghana,” he said.
Costly delay
According to Dr Awuah, Ghana is doing something right, and this has triggered its favourable rates of recovery. He believes that early measures by the government to make Ghanaians aware of the dangers of the viral disease are now paying off.
“The president’s early-days message, telling people to wear masks, and the shutdown that occurred so we could [find] our bearings, even though it was economically costly, actually had a public health messaging effect which said, ‘This so serious, we shut the economies of two cities.’
“I think that has affected the behaviour of people and is part of the reason why the infections are not as severe here.
“We shouldn’t be second-guessing the government. They have a team that is working on it. [But] if it were me I wouldn’t take two weeks to decide whether we should do lockdown.
“I think those two weeks were costly. If we had done it earlier we would have come out of it quicker and have a handle on it.”
Rapid drop in active cases
However, the government has done well, Awuah said, but everybody must play his or her part to stay safe and contain the disease.
Ghana has recorded 42,653 confirmed cases of the coronavirus, with 1,847 active cases, 40,567 recoveries and 239 deaths.
In the past three weeks the country has experienced a sharp decline in the number of active cases of COVID-19, previously estimated at 3,307.
Fred Dzakpata
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