Founder of the Danquah Institute, Gabby Asare Otchere-Darko
Founder of the Danquah Institute, Gabby Asare Otchere-Darko

Ghana is likely to see more than 500 persons make a complete recovery from the Covid-19 over the next three weeks, this is according to a leading member of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP), Gabby Asare Otchere-Darko.

The private legal practitioner, who is also President Akufo-Addo’s cousin, made the prediction in a post on his Facebook wall, hours after the president addressed the nation on the measures being taken to contain the spread of the virus in the country.

President Akufo-Addo disclosed in his address to the nation – the 7th in since the first two cases were reported in Ghana – that as of Sunday, April 19, 2020, the caseload stood at 1,042 with nine deaths and 99 recoveries.

The data is from samples taken from 68,591 people and tested for the virus out of which 67,549 tested negative representing 98.5% while 1,042 (1.5%) tested positive for the coronavirus, the President stated.

“The main reason our country has seen an increase in the number of confirmed cases over the last three weeks is because of the decision we took aggressively to trace and test contacts of infected persons,” he explained.

Analysing the data, Mr Otchere-Darko said of the current 1,042 positive cases the country has recorded, only four “are in either critical or moderately ill condition.”

“That is 0.38%! Going by one source alone, www.worldometers.info the global rate is over 3% in critical condition (down from 6% a month ago as nominal figures rise). Also, majority of those infected with Covid-19 get a self-limiting infection and will go on to recover,” he stated.

He then stated: “My prediction is that over the next three weeks alone, we are likely to have over 500 cases of recovered cases in Ghana after the mandatory two successful negative tests.”

He defended the decision by the President to lift the three-week restriction imposed on the movement of persons stressing that, lockdown is by no means the only effective method of checking the spread of this virus.

“Some of the countries combating this pandemic more effectively than most countries, are not in lockdown. They did all the other things we are doing, including aggressive contact tracing and testing and shunned lockdown,” he argued.

“We should be careful about being unduly influenced by imported groupthink. We must develop our own group think based on our own circumstances and available scientific evidence,” he added.