55 Accra Girls SHS students test positive for COVID-19

A jointly released statement by the Ghana Education Service (GES) and the Ghana Health Service (GHS) copied to Georgeweb.org has confirmed that at least 55 students of the Accra Girls Senior High School have tested positive for the locally transmitted coronavirus.

The sudden cases were recorded after 312 people including students and staff of the school were tested, 259 out of the 312 people however tested negative for the novel disease.

“Currently, 55 students have tested positive for novel coronavirus”

The Service in the statement indicated that few other schools have similar reported cases which have not increased as Accra Girls SHS, no schools were mentioned by the Service though.

Following the repeated cases of the coronavirus in some schools, some pressure groups, stakeholders and the opposition NDC party has called the Government of Ghana (GoG) to immediately close down the school for the safety of the students.

However, the Minister for Education and Member of Parliament for the Manhyia South Constituency in an interview said the calls for the closure of schools are untenable.

“Those of us in leadership must listen to public concerns, and be guided by the evidence in making recommendations to the President.

“Even if my child were in school at present, I would not, with the evidence as it stands, recommend to the President that schools should be shut down”, he argued.

NAPO gave instance that considering that there are 721 senior high schools in the country, with a population of about 400,000 and 13 reported cases across 5 schools, the calls for the schools to be shut down were not tenable

The Member of Parliament furthered that there had been no reported cases of the virus in even some communities where some of the Senior High Schools are located.

According to him, there is no way one can call for the closure of schools in the country.

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He insisted that whether to close the schools or keep them open, we have to look at community trends as well as risks and rewards involved.

Source: Georgeweb.org