Accra has returned to status quo a day after Ghana’s President Nana Akufo-Addo announced the end of a three-week coronavirus lockdown.
A lot of Ghanaians were relieved to get back to work. However, others were left worrying after the country became the first in Africa to lift a coronavirus lockdown.
Jemima Adwoa Anim was overjoyed to be back out hawking her wares as pedestrians and cars returned to Accra’s central business district. She says it is a huge reprieve that reflects the government is listening.
Explaining the lockdown situation, she said: “It was a war-like situation. We had no money and we couldn’t step out to work to earn some cash. God bless our president.”
Ghana has so far confirmed 1,042 infections, with nine deaths, from the novel coronavirus. The country of approximately 30 million has ramped up testing and checked over 68,000 samples.
Related: Rwanda records over 100 covid-19 cases.
President Akufo-Addo announced the lifting of restrictions in a televised address late on Sunday. He said the decision was taken “in view of our ability to undertake aggressive contact tracing of infected people, the enhancement of our capacity to test, the expansion in the numbers of our treatment and isolation centres”.
He further said that “the decision to restrict movement has caused severe difficulties for all of us across the country, especially for the poor and vulnerable”.
However, around the capital, there was plenty of criticism for the decision to ease restrictions. Many are complaining that the partial lockdown should not have been lifted. Especially since Ghana has over 1,000 positive cases of coronavirus.
Akufo-Addo said people were encouraged “to wear a mask wherever you go” to help contain the spread of the virus.