The New Juaben South Municipality has recorded seventy-one new cases of COVID-19 this year.

This brings the total number of cases in the municipality to 484 with 18 recorded deaths so far.

In an interview with the Daily Graphic in Koforidua, Dr. Edmund Ekow Kaitoo, who is the Municipal Health Director, said that due to the non-existence of an isolation center in the municipality, all patients are quarantined in their homes, for treatment.

He added that to ensure they receive the necessary care, members of the Municipal COVID-19 Emergency Response Team of the Ghana Health Service visit the patients at home to lend them the needed support.

The cases, he said, cover the first 26 days of January 2021.

He also indicated that contact tracing was still ongoing for all those who, in a way or another, had come into contact with the affected patients.

“If we are to undertake mass testing, the figure will rise because about 80 percent of the people you meet on the streets and in markets are not wearing face masks and also not practicing social distancing," he stated.

He added that just as the second wave of the pandemic sweeps the world, he and his team in the Municipality are on hand, doing all they can to ensure that they do not record any of such new variants there.

He used the opportunity to remind the public on the strict adherence to the COVID-19 protocols, stressing that it is the surest protection against the virus.

"COVID-19 is real, so don't downplay it, take the safety protocols very seriously to protect yourself from infection," he urged residents of the area.