As Africa continues to battle the impact of the COVID-19 on the continent, Ghanian President, Nana Akufo-Addo, has lifted the lockdown imposed on some parts of the country.
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In a nationwide address on Sunday night, Akufo-Addo lifted the lockdown imposed on Greater Accra Metropolitan Area, the Greater Kumasi Metropolitan Area and other districts of the country.
The President explained that the lockdown was lifted due to aggressive contact tracing of those infected and expansion of isolation centres.
President Akufo-Addo stated:
In view of our ability to undertake aggressive contact tracing of infected persons, the enhancement of our capacity to test, the expansion in the numbers of our treatment and isolation centres, our better understanding of the dynamism of the virus, the ramping up of our domestic capacity to produce our own personal protective equipment, sanitisers and medicines, the modest successes chalked at containing the spread of the virus in Accra and Kumasi, and the severe impact on the poor and vulnerable, I have taken the decision to lift the three-week-old restriction on movements in the Greater Accra Metropolitan Area and Kasoa, and the Greater Kumasi Metropolitan Area and its contiguous districts, with effect from 1 am on Monday, 20th April.”
The three-week lockdown announced by Akufo-Ado was necessitated after 60,000 people in the country were tested for COVID-19, after recording nine COVID-19 related deaths.
The decision by the Ghanaian government to lift the ban on movement comes at a time when their West African neighbour, Nigeria, extended the lockdown in some parts of the country as the figure of cases continues to grow at an astronomical rate.
Also, Nigeria, having conducted only 7153 tests as against Ghana 60,000, leads the former Gold Coast in the number of confirmed cases and COVID-19 related deaths.
This implies that there are chances of Nigeria would live to the predictions of experts who stipulated Nigeria would record one of the highest figures in Africa.
Following these predictions, several countries of the world have started evacuating their citizens, including the United States which currently ranks highest among countries with the highest COVID-19 cases.
