A model generated for the coronavirus infections in Ghana has projected that some 15,000 people could also 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 additionally supported a baseline projection that 10% of Ghanaians are likely to check positive for the virus before infection peak.
Making the revelation on Joy News’ current affairs programme PM Express on Tuesday evening, the previous director of the Ghana Health Service (GHS) said out of the ten projected infections, the bulk of the cases are likely to be asymptomatic.
“We expect that about 10% of the population could also be infected and out of the ten of the population 80% might not show signs or symptoms in the least and 5% of them are going to be very ill, that’s the projection,” he said.
Out of this 5% of persons projected to be critically ill, 10% may die, the Presidential Advisor said.
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 a minimum of 150, 000 will fall within this category.
Out of the 150,000 people whose infection is going to be serious, 10% of are going to be fatal; which suggests 15,000 deaths would are recorded before Ghana gets out of the woods.
Dr. Nsiah-Asare, however, said this modeling might not apply strictly to Ghana due to the observed dynamics of infected cases across the country.
“If you check out the cases that we are seeing, the cases that are becoming critical are very, very small…it means, we have got a situation where this hypothesis could also be the case in Ghana,” he clarified on PM Express.
Ghana’s coronavirus caseload currently 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.
