2 August 2020

Revisting our July covid-19 projections

We made some projections on what the national covid-19 case count would be at the end of July. Now that July has ended, we compare the projected with the actual figures.

The initial projections were based on the daily increases in June. The projection ended at July 29th because the Ghana Health Service did not provide figures for June 30th. There are also no figures available for July 29th and so the comparison will be for July 28th.


Comparison of actual July versus projected covid-19 cases for Ghana

We can see that the projected figures are higher than what was reported in reality (+5,832). We gave the caveat that population projections are conditional. 

One of the differences between June and July is that testing rates declined. Total testing numbers on 28th June reflected a 34% increase compared to at the beginning of June. For July, the testing number on 28th was 27% the number on the 1st. For covid-19 where testing is critical for identifying cases, declines in testing will affect reported cases. It is important that as case count increases, testing capacity also increases. 

Increase in the testing capacity will also address the issue of backlog. The reported figures for 30th July include samples taken during the period 30th June to 28th July. A comparison with 1st July indicates that the samples were taken during the period 14th to 29th June