President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has explained his decision to lift the lockdown imposed on some cities in the country.
He said the decision was as a result of the consistency in data churned out from the enhanced testing carried out by the health workers in the three-week period.
According to him, the data gave the same demography as regards the infection rate, death rate, number of infected and those moderately ill and treated, among others.
“All those things are remaining quite constant in the data that we have and I think it is that constancy and that robustness of the data that we have in Ghana that is inspiring our decisions.”
President Akufo-Addo was explaining to leadership of the Ghana Medical Association (GMA) when he met them at the Jubilee House on Monday, April 20.
The Association, largely made up of doctors in Ghana, had been ardent advocates of a total lockdown of the country in the face of the threat of coronavirus.
But on Friday, March 27, government decided to rather impose lockdowns on Accra, Kumasi, Kasoa and Tema with a ban on social gathering across the country.
After three weeks, government decided to lift the lockdown though assuring the citizens of not letting its guard down in the fight against the pandemic.
The decision was met with a mixed reaction among Ghanaians with some political leaders claiming it was politically motivated.
But President Akufo-Addo acknowledged that since the government knew the ramifications of such a decision, they considered many factors such as social, economic, cultural and health reasons.
“What we have to do is to balance all these factors and then come to a conclusion and a set of decision that will best protect our people and of course protect the economy of our country,” he said.
He indicated that so far the decision to enhance tracing, testing and treatment had paid dividends, admitting that the decision to lift the lockdown also considered the difficulties of a large number of the populace, which subsisted hand-to-mouth.
The President of the GMA, Dr Frank Ankobea, pledged the support of the Association in the fight against the disease.
“We are going to fight till this virus is eliminated from Ghana.”
By Emmanuel Kwame Amoh|3news.com|Ghana