Health Minister Kweku Agyemang-Manu has said the government learnt a lot of lessons from the three-week partial lockdown it imposed on Accra, Kumasi, Kasoa and Tema as part of measures to control the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic and does not think such a strategy works anymore.

Answering a question on Thursday, 14 May 2020 at a media briefing about whether or not the government was considering locking down Obuasi, a hotspot of the disease in the Ashanti Region, Mr Agyemang-Manu said: “The Director-General for Ghana Health Service should be in Obuasi with a group and surveillance people now”, adding: “Not until he comes back, this question will be difficult for me to answer”.

“But, generally”, the minister noted, “a lockdown is not something that we believe is going to work any longer”.

“I’ve said that now – we have realised – the lockdown taught us a lot of things and its impact is quite severe, so, what we have to do now is to learn to live with the disease”, Mr Agyemang-Manu said.

“So, when they go and come back and we get their report, it will determine, it will drive us to make certain decisions. So, not until they come back, we must be very careful as to whether we are talking about a lockdown in Obuasi or not”, he cautioned.

Meanwhile, the number of COVID-19 cases in Ghana has gone up again, reaching 5,530, the Ghana Health Service announced on Thursday.

Also, the number of recoveries has risen to 674.

The death toll remains at 24.

The Greater Accra Region remains the hottest spot of the country with over 4,000 cases.