Coronavirus upsurge: Run shifts – Akufo-Addo advices business owners

President Nana Ado Dankwa Akufo-Addo has urged employers and business owners to run shifts as part of measures to stem the tide of the COVID-19 upsurge.

In his 26th address to the nation on Sunday, 25 July 2021, Akufo-Addo said: “With workplaces currently witnessing a resurgence in COVID-19 infections, I want to admonish businesses, workplaces and their owners and management to observe staff management and workplace protocols, such as the use of a shift system and technology, with the view to achieving social distancing and hygiene protocols.”

The Ghana Health Service, he noted, “has moved to fortify its contact tracing, testing and treating campaigns, especially across the hotspots of Greater Accra and Greater Kumasi Metropolitan areas. COVID-19 treatment centres continue to be resourced with medical supplies, personal protection equipment, and health workers.”

The president also said: “We will continue to ensure that all arriving passengers at the Kotoka International Airport are in possession of a negative PCR test result upon their arrival in Ghana, a test which should have been conducted not more than seventy-two (72) hours before the scheduled departure from the country of origin. In addition, all passengers will continue to be subjected to a mandatory COVID test on arrival”.

The president said the upsurge in cases clearly shows that Ghana is experiencing a third wave, which he put down to the relaxing of adherence to the safety protocols.

“As per data available from the Ghana Health Service, it appears that, unfortunately, our nation is experiencing a third wave of COVID-19 infections”, the president noted.

“These increased infections have largely been driven by the Delta Variant of the virus, which, according to the World Health Organisation, has increased transmissibility rates, and, in our case in Ghana, has led, in recent weeks, to a rise in hospitalisation and ICU bed uptakes, and, tragically, deaths”, he noted.

The president also announced a ban on all post-funeral receptions and said one-week funeral anniversaries should be “restricted solely to family members, and should not exceed a duration of two hours”.

He also directed that all funerals should not go beyond two hours.

The 26th COVID-19 address was delivered 24 hours after the Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research (NMIMR) warned that fully-vaccinated persons are testing positive for the fast-spreading Delta variant with very high viral loads.

NMIMR observed, “with concern”, some characteristics of the new Delta variant of SARS-Cov-2 detected at the institute’s testing centre since April 2021.

In a statement issued on Saturday, 24 July 2021, the Institute said the “positive cases have very high viral loads indicated by low cut-off thresholds (CT values) obtained in the real-time RT-PCR assay”.

The CT values for the majority are between 15 and 20 compared to higher values above 30, seen previously, NMIMR noted.

The Institute also said it has observed that “the positive individuals are taking longer to clear the virus”, explaining: “This is evident in the number of retests that still test positive”.

NMIMR also revealed that its recent sequencing of SARS-Cov-2 has revealed an “increased circulation of the Delta variant in Ghanaian communities compared to the earlier Alpha variants”.

“The higher viral loads observed in recent cases are attributable to the Delta variant”, the statement said.

Transmission of SARS-Cov-2 is directly linked to how much virus is shed in droplets during sneezing and coughing, which also determines the spread through talking, singing and other related activities.

The Delta variant has been reported to spread faster than the other variants and our testing observations confirm that.

The statement said some clinical specimen submitted to the Institute have tested positive with high viral loads.

“Also, 7.34 per cent (840/6,538) of the positive cases recorded from asymptomatic persons who visit the walk-in centre to test for travel, work- or school-related purposes from 1 June to 22 July 2021, have equally high viral load”, NMIMR noted.

Noguchi warned: “With a population of more than 80 per cent unvaccinated, the country must be concerned that if these, apparently healthy carriers, transmit the virus to the unvaccinated, we may have a more serious outbreak to deal with as a nation”.

Some of these positive cases, it noted, “have taken the full dose of COVID-19 vaccines”.

“It is, therefore, recommended that the government take a second look at the state of adherence to COVID-19 preventive protocols and appropriate restrictions”.

Currently, the number of active COVID-19 cases in Ghana has shot up to 4,094, the latest figures from the Ghana Health Service indicate.

Some 423 new cases have been confirmed.

The death toll has also risen to 821.

Since March 12, 2020, the total number of COVID-19 cases recorded in Ghana up to date is 101,170.

Out of that number 96,255 have recovered.