Three-quarters of households in Ghana experienced a decline in income after mid-March

The Ghana Statistical Service has released findings from their households and jobs tracker survey, a nationally representative telephone-based longitudinal survey of 3,265 households across the country.

The survey found that covid-19 has had a substantial impact on household incomes with the results suggesting that over 22 million Ghanaians have seen their incomes fall since March. The findings also reveal that majority of respondents were understandably concerned about the impact of covid-19.

We will continue to explore the findings in further detail. In the meantime, read more in the household and job survey report here.

Global covid-19 death toll still climbing

644,832 deaths have been recorded with the trend indicating that number of deaths is still rising 7 months after the disease was declared a pandemic.

The world continues to grapple with covid-19 as global case count passes 16 million

United States (4.18 million), Brazil (2.39 million) and India (1.39 million) are leading the number of cases as of 26th July.

Ghana on the verge of passing 30,000 recorded covid-19 cases

4,442 new covid-19 cases were reported since our last update.  The national case count now stands at 29,672.

The cases recorded on the 19th includes samples taken as far back as 16th June. Daily testing numbers picked up from the previous week; 25,449 tests were carried out compared to 19,207 in the previous week. 

Greater Accra (1,837) and Ashanti (1,360) region combined to contribute 70% of new cases.

Number of new covid-19 increasing in Africa

South Africa, Egypt, Nigeria, Ghana and Algeria lead with the highest case counts.

According to the Africa Centre for Disease Control new cases reported this week increased by 21% compared to the previous week. In all, 736,288 cases have been reported in 54 African countries representing 5% of the global case count. Africa's share of global cases has increased from 2% since we last posted a global update in May.

15,418 deaths have been reported representing a case fatality rate of 2.1%.

World Youth Skills Day

July 15 is World Youth Skills Day. The day is meant to raise awareness on the importance of equipping young people with the skills for employment. 

The covid-19 pandemic has negatively impacted the skills development of youth all over the world. UNESCO estimates that almost 70% of the world's learners at all levels have been affected by school closures.

Testing numbers decline as case count climbs past 25,000

3,284 new cases recorded since our update last week leading to a total count of 25,252. This represents a decline from the 4,227 cases recorded in the previous week. However, we have to note that the number of test conducted in this 7 day period also declined from the number in the week prior to this one.

19,207 tests were conducted in the period 27th June to 4th July compared to 14,030 tests conducted in the period 5th July to 11th July; representing a 27% decline in cases tested.

Today is World Population Day

July 11th is World Population Day, a day to highlight important population issues. The first World Population Day was commemorated 31 years ago in 1989.

The theme for this year is "Putting the brakes on COVID-19: how to safeguard the health and rights of women and girls now"

Research from UNFPA projects that the pandemic will have devastating effects on the well-being of females from increased risk of domestic violence and maternal death, reduced access to family planning and greater likelihood of child marriages.

Read more on the harmful practices for girls here and in the State of the World Population 2020 report.

What are population projections?

Population projections are generally an estimate of what the population will look like in future. 

More specifically, projections are an educated guess of the population size and structure based on assumptions about future population trends and analyses of current and historical trends. Population projections are conditional and the resulting figures are dependent on the underlying assumptions.

Ghana approaching 22,000 cases as daily infections continue to rise

Ghana's case count continues to rise amidst the easing of restrictions. 4,227 new cases were recorded in the past week since our last update which is about one and a half times the new cases reported in the previous week. The current count stands at 21,968 confirmed cases.

All regions reported new cases. Greater Accra (2,229) and Ashanti (1,012) contributed three-quarter of the new cases.

Total Fertility Rates

The standard measure of fertility is the Total Fertility Rate (TFR).

Total Fertility Rate is the number of children than a woman has. TFR ranges from 1 in South Korea to 6.9 in Niger (2018 World Bank est.) with the top 25 highest fertility countries in sub-Saharan Africa, mainly from West and Central Africa.

Replacement level fertility is the level of fertility required for each generation to replace itself. Normally, 2 people would need to have 2 children to replace themselves. However at the population level the replacement TFR would have to be greater than 2 to account for the loss of children who will die before reaching adulthood. Replacement level TFR is thus considered to be 2.1 (in high mortality settings however, replacement level fertility would have to be higher because a greater proportion of children die in childhood).

Basic fertility concepts

Fertility, one of the population processes is defined as the number of children born to a woman. 

What is known as fertility (i.e. the physical ability to have children) in conventional language is referred to as fecundity by demographers.

Fertility is determined by two main factors - biological and behavioural. The behavioural factors exert a greater influence on fertility than the social factors.