A model generated for the coronavirus infections in Ghana has projected that some 15,000 people may be killed by the raging virus, Presidential Advisor on Health, Dr Anthony Nsiah-Asare, has revealed.
The model follows the lifting of the lockdown directive on some parts of the country on Monday, April, 20, 2020, he said.
According to Dr Nsiah-Asare, this projection is also based on a baseline projection that 10% of Ghanaians are likely to test positive for the virus before infections peak.
Making the revelation on Joy News’ current affairs programme PM Express on Tuesday evening, the former director of the Ghana Health Service (GHS) said out of the 10% projected infections, majority of the cases are likely to be asymptomatic.
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“We expect that about 10% of the population may be infected and out of the 10% of the population 80% may not show signs or symptoms at all and 5% of them will be very ill, that is the projection,” he said.Nsiah-Asare on Covid-19 projectionsNsiah-Asare on Covid-19 projections.
Breakdown
With these projections, if Ghana’s population is pegged at 30 million, it implies some three million Ghanaians may get infected for the Covid-19.
Also, 5% of the projected three million infections falling seriously sick suggests that at least 150, 000 will fall within this category.
Out the 150,000 people whose infection will be serious, 10% of will be fatal; which means 15,000 deaths would have been recorded before Ghana gets out of the woods.
Dr Nsiah-Asare, however, said this modelling may not apply strictly to Ghana because of the observed dynamics of infected cases across the country.
“If you look at the cases that we are seeing, the cases that are getting critical are very, very small…it means, we have a situation where this hypothesis may be the case in Ghana,” he clarified on PM Express.
Ghana’s coronavirus caseload stands at 1,042, President Nana Akufo-Addo announced on Sunday, April, 19, 2020.
Out of this number, only nine people have died from the Covid0-19, the disease caused by the virus.
The current caseload is a significant leap of 208 cases from the last update of 843 posted by the Ghana Health Service on Saturday.
The President said in a televised broadcast that the latest figure is the result of an aggressive contact tracing as well as enhanced testing capacity by the Ghana Health Service.
The President said a total of 68,591 have been tested for the virus out of which 67,549 tested negative representing 98.5% while a 1,042 have tested (1.5%) tested positive for the coronavirus.
The 99 persons who have recovered constitutes 9.5%, total number of deaths recorded still stood at nine (0.9%), the president told the nation.
Watch the full interview with Dr Nsiah-Asare above.