President to confirm school reopening after Cabinet meeting on December 30

General news for Wednesday 23 December 2020

Source: GNA

23/12/2020

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo is receiving information from the COVID-19 Technical Working Group on Limited School Reopens and is reportedly making a firm decision on reopening schools in January 2021 after a Cabinet meeting on December 30, 2020.

Addressing a press conference in Accra on COVID-19 updates on Tuesday, Information Minister Kojo Oppong Nkrumah said the COVID-19 task force will work throughout the Christmas period to brief the president and analyze the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on students, during the limited reopening of schools in July, August, September and October this year.

In July, the government allowed final year students at higher education institutions to complete their semester courses and take their exit exams.

The final year high school students also returned to complete their quarterly classes and wrote the West African Examination Certificate (WAEC), while the final year high school students undertook the Basic Education Certificate exam ( BECE) in September and October, second- JHS and SHS Year Students have returned to school to complete their quarterly classes.

During the period, some students and teachers contracted coronavirus disease and were isolated, tested and treated.

It is in light of this that members of the COVID-19 task force informed the president to inform the government of the decision to reopen basic schools in January 2021.

The information minister said a subcommittee on reopening schools would soon be formed to plan and strategize for the future.

This, he said, would ensure that the school environment does not become a haven for the spread of the respiratory tract.

Responding to whether Ghana was considering stopping flights from countries witnessing the second wave of infection, Oppong Nkrumah said all options were being considered, but for now the country was implementing implements two levels of prevention strategies.

The first layer, he said, that all disembarking travelers should have a negative PCR result from the country of origin, which was carried out 72 hours before departure.

Additionally, all disembarking passengers were supposed to take an antigen test at Kotoka International Airport and after the person tested negative, they would be allowed in, while those who tested positive are isolated and treated.

Currently, Ghana has recorded 54,043 positive cases of COVID-19, with 52,777 recoveries / discharges, which represents a cure rate of 97.7%, according to Dr Patrick Kuma-Aboagye, Director General of the Ghana Health Service.

As of Saturday, December 19, 2020, there were 933 active cases and 333 deaths with a death rate of 0.62%, which is well below the global rate of 2.25%.

Ghana has so far performed 646,697 tests, representing 20,000 per million population and a positivity rate of 8.4%.

Dr Kumah-Aboagye said people with high blood pressure, diabetes and asthma were more prone to infections and a higher risk of dying from the disease.

People aged 20 to 49 were the most infected in the country.