- “So, the good news is that about 42% of our people are now wearing masks appropriately, 36% were not wearing it at all, with about 22% not wearing masks at all and 26% were not wearing it correctly,” Dr Kuma-Aboagye said.
At least 777 new coronavirus (COVID-19) cases have been confirmed taking Ghana’s active cases to 5,786, reports the Ghana Health Service (GHS).
This takes the total number of confirmed cases since March 2020 to 68, 559.
Nine more individuals have passed on increasing the death toll to 433 since the last update, reports the official GHS website.
Officially, 62, 340 recoveries have been recorded. In total, 1,135 cases have been detected at the Kotoka International Airport since September last year out of which 878 have recovered.
No patient is on a ventilator at the moment, reports the GHS. However, 126 are in critical condition.
Regional active cases
Greater Accra – 40,320
Ashanti Region – 12,453
Western Region – 3,622
Eastern Region – 2,905
Central Region – 2,340
Volta Region – 991
Bono East Region – 837
Western North Region – 712
Bono Region – 680
Northern Region – 712
Upper East Region – 713
Ahafo Region –551
Oti Region – 246
Upper West Region – 213
Savannah Region – 63
North East Region –25
Improvement in wearing of nose mask
The GHS has commended the public for wearing their nose masks in the open after its latest survey reveals an increase of 42%.
The director-general of GHS, Dr Patrick Kuma-Aboagye, told journalists on Tuesday (2 February) in Accra that this is a remarkable improvement in their previous survey in October last year which saw only 10% of the public wearing nose masks.
The survey also reveals the number of people not wearing the mask correctly has decreased from 72 to 36%.
“So, the good news is that about 42% of our people are now wearing masks appropriately, 36% were not wearing it at all, with about 22% not wearing masks at all and 26% were not wearing it correctly,” Dr Kuma-Aboagye said.
He added: “So, if you add, we are looking at about almost 80% of people who have intention to wear, those who are not wearing properly, is still an intention to wear, so we are seeing an upsurge in the use of masks and we hope it will continue.”
Ayawaso West tops all
According to the survey, Ayawaso West District registered the highest proportion of people who were wearing the mask correctly at 57% while Ga West District registered the lowest proportion of people who were wearing the masks correctly at about 29.1%
The survey revealed that the proportion of people who were correctly wearing the face masks were slightly higher among males than females.
However, the survey said the proportion of people who were correctly wearing face masks among children were slightly higher than adults.
The top three communities that had the highest proportion of people wearing face masks correctly were University of Ghana main entrance (Okponglo), University of Ghana main entrance and GCB Towers all in the Greater Accra Region.
Meanwhile, Nima Market, Glife Lorry Park and Osu Market entrance have been identified as the top three areas where people are not complying with the wearing of masks in the Greater Accra Region.
Fred Dzakpata
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