A virologist and lead researcher at the Kumasi Centre for Collaborative Research in Tropical Medicine (KCCR), Dr Michael Owusu, has noted that the Covid-19 cases keep rising in Ghana because some people still don’t believe the virus exists in Ghana and are therefore going about their duties normally as though there is nothing at stake.

He told Alfred Ocansey on the Sunrise morning show on 3FM Monday, July 6 that Ghana risks losing several lives if this mindset is not changed.

“Some people still don’t believe that there is coronavirus in Ghana hence going about their routine activities normally,” Dr Owusu said.

He added: “We risk losing many lives and that is not good for us.”

Ghana’s Covid-19 case count currently stands at 20,085, according to updates by the Ghana Health Service (GHS) on its website as of Sunday, July 5.

These include 697 newly recorded cases and five more deaths.

With the additional five deaths, the total death toll is now 122 while 14,870 make up the discharged/recovered category of patients.

Of the total cases, 5,093 are active.

According to the GHS, these new numbers are from samples that were taken between June 16 and July 1.

Twenty-two persons are currently in severe condition while eight are in critical situations.

Dr Michael Owusu also asked the Electoral Commission, Ghana (EC) to postpone the voter registration exercise if people fail to adhere to the Covid-19 protocols.

He explained that one of the major factors in spreading covid-19 is large gatherings, therefore, if participants in the ongoing registration exercise will not adhere to the social distancing safety measure and others, then the EC will have to act and postpone the exercise.

“The EC has some level of responsibility to ensure that the people who come over there also adhere to the precautions.

“Once the EC evaluates the decision, they will have to improve as they go through this exercise and try to amend, or change or put things in order to ensure people do the right things.

“If they are unable to ensure people do the right things then of course they will have to come back to Ghanaians and tell Ghanaians that from what they have seen people are not adhering and people are not obeying the rules and people cannot stick to what they have put out, therefore, they think they have to either close some of the centres or postpone it to some other date where they feel that people will be more careful.

“The virus rises on gatherings, social gatherings is one of the major risk factors for spread of the virus and when you bring people together and they mingle and move about and they don’t adhere to precautions the danger is that they will pick the virus and get back to their community, and we are going to have some spike.”

He added: “We have to support the EC to do what they are doing but then if they feel that people are not obeying and are not listening, they have the capacity to ensure that people do the right things.

“They have to look at the alternative which could be either postponing some of registration, or closing some centers or arresting some people.”