Continue Wearing Face Masks To Sustain Ghana’s COVID-19 Gains – Okoe Boye Tells Ghanaians

A Deputy Minister for Health, Bernard Okoe Boye has urged the public not to renege on their efforts to maintain the gains the country has made in its fight against COVID-19.

He said since there is yet to be a cure for COVID-19, the outlined preventive measures are the only lifeline available to stop the spread and fight off the disease.

Speaking on the sidelines of the launch of a foundation to support the aged, “the 60 plus foundation,” the Ledzokuku legislator said Ghanaians must continue to wear face masks in public places until the government formally gives an indication that it could be done away with.

“We have medications we use to support the treatment of COVID-19 cases. What we have is not a cure so let us all get it straight that what we have is the preventive tool. We must take the preventive tool seriously and cherish it because that is what will keep us out of danger. Anyone who fails to wear the mask is pushing it back and can undo all our gains. We are wearing masks until the president through his address tells us that mask-wearing should be stopped,” Okoe-Boye said.

The Director-General of the Ghana Health Service (GHS), Dr. Patrick Kuma-Aboagye, at a recent press conference expressed worry over what he said was the low level of compliance to the wearing of face masks in the country.

The Ghana Health Service’s concern was based on a survey it conducted in the Greater Accra Region where it found out that only 14.4% of the population in the region wear face masks appropriately and on regular basis.

“Greater Accra is the one that is driving the pandemic [in Ghana] and so it is extremely important that we reset and go back and start wearing the mask so that as active cases are coming down, it will continue to go down. We started with one case and now 43,000. Where we are now, we need to be very careful. That is our major worry and we need to intensify the campaign [for wearing face masks],” the Director-General of the Ghana Health Service, Dr. Patrick Kumah Aboagye noted.