Half of Ghanaian households had to reduce food consumption due to covid-19

We continue to highlight the impact of the covid-19 pandemic in our series based on findings from the Ghana Statistical Service covid-19 household and jobs tracker survey.

About 3 out of 10 Ghanaian children have not engaged in any learning activities since March

We discussed the implications of school closures on educational inequality in Ghana as not all children would be able to participate in virtual learning programmes because they did not have access to radio, TV, and/or internet.

The Ghana Statistical Service report from the first wave of their household and jobs survey confirms that a substantial proportion of children have not been able to engage in virtual learning since March.

3 out of 4 Ghanaian children who missed vaccinations did so due to covid-related reasons

During World Immunization Week 2020, the WHO called for actions to minimize disruptions to immunization programmes due to the covid-19 pandemic.

The Households and Jobs Tracker survey has confirmed that the pandemic has increased the risk of children who are due for vaccinations not getting the needed vaccine. The report indicated that 76.8% of children did not get vaccinated when they had to because of covid-19 related reasons.

Ghanaian businesses reported an average 61% decline in sales since March

The Ghana Statistical Service has just released findings from their Business Tracker survey which presents some sobering statistics on the impact of the covid-19 restrictions on businesses and the labour force. 

The report estimates businesses lost GHS 115.2 million in sales since March. An estimated 770,124 had their wages reduced while an estimate 41,952 were laid off. The report also highlighted the limited access to the government's assistance for businesses with only 3.5% of firms receiving government assistance.

Greater Accra and Ashanti covid-19 case counts greater than most African countries

Greater Accra has more confirmed covid-19 cases  (18,882) than the other 15 regions combined (18,132).

If Greater Accra region were a country on its own in the WHO African region*, it would rank 6th out of 47 in case counts** after only South Africa (503,290), Nigeria (43,537), Ghana (35,501), Algeria (30,950) and Kenya (21,363).

Ashanti region (9,328), which has more cases than the other regions excluding Greater Accra combined (8,804), would rank 11th out of 47.

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.

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%.

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.

Greater Accra approaches 10,000 cases as national count reaches 17,741

2,734 new covid-19 cases have been recorded in Ghana since our update last week. Ashanti passed 3,000 cases with Western North and Ashanti moving into triple digit number of cases.

Greater Accra contributed 43% of the new cases (1,167), followed by Ashanti with 26% of new cases (700). Western Region (343) and Eastern (216) contributed 13% and 8% respectively.

Western Region passes 1,000 cases and national count passes 15,000

2,820 new cases of covid-19 have been confirmed in Ghana since our update last week bringing the total to 15,013 cases. A little over half of the new case (1521) were in Greater Accra and almost a quarter were from Ashanti (640).

Over 2,000 covid-19 cases recorded in Ghana in the past week

Greater Accra contributed about a third of new cases, the highest percent as usual but the region's contribution to new cases has been declining - more than half of new cases were from Greater Accra a month ago. Ashanti contributed about a quarter of new cases with Western, Central and Upper East contributing about a tenth each. 

Upper East's numbers have increased substantially since our update last week - from 42 to 241 cases

Standardized covid-19 case counts for regions in Ghana

We discussed in our earlier post that differences in population size can make it difficult to compare absolute numbers across different populations. Today we present standardized covid-19 case counts by region for Ghana to compare the severity of the outbreak by region.

Almost 10,000 confirmed cases of covid-19 in Ghana

1,840 new cases were reported in the past week since our last update to bring the confirmed case count to 9,910. This is a significant increase from the previous week's increase  of 1,106 (+734) and the increase of 896 (+944) in the week before that.

95% of new cases came from the Greater Accra (65%), Ashanti (17%), Western (8%) and Central (5%) regions.