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The number of COVID-19 cases in Ghana currently is at 641 with eighty-three (83) full recovery cases recorded.

Ghana has so far tested 50,719 samples for coronavirus (COVID-19).

This figure might sound alarming and for this reason, the Minister of Information has provided a breakdown of the figures for further clarification.

According to Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, ''there is the normal surveillance test which is what ordinarily we would have found if we were still using the old method. Under the normal surveillance test, 13,838 people have been tested; under the normal surveillance test. People suspected they had symptoms etc and got in touch with 112 and the phone platforms or went to their clinicians to be tested. 268 of them tested positive. That is a rate of 1,9%. So, 1.9% of the people who suspect they are having symptoms tested positive. Then there is the mandatory quarantine where the State decided that we will mandatorily quarantine people and test them once they were entering the jurisdiction at a time that our borders were being closed. It was in two parts, Airport and Tamale; so the Accra airport and Tamale."

"At the Accra airport, we ended up running a total of 2011 tests. 105 of them tested positive. In the end, that's a rate of 5.28% tested positive. In Tamale, we run 11 tests. 10 were positive; that was 91% of that. Then we had the third level of the enhanced contact tracing and testing. That is where now the public health nurses, immigration, epidemiologists are going out to the communities or the hotspots and are chasing, literally chasing or going or seeking to go ahead of the virus to find it and not wait for it to manifest. We have done a total of 34,859 in that enhanced contact tracing and testing category. 258 of them were positive; that is 0.7%".

He noted that the outcome of the tests will inform President Nana Akufo-Addo's next move for the country.

"As at last night, we had 50,719 tests and 1.3% of the people we have tested are positive. So, it begins to give you a sense that of this entire what you call lockdown that has been done for the major objective of literally trying to get ahead and find out how much of the virus we have in the system and deal with it, we are finding out as at the data from last night that just about 1.3% of the 'At risk' populations that we have tested are the ones that has tested positive. It begins to give you an idea of the level of challenge we have in the system . . . it is elements like this that will inform the President's decision of what should happen next," he said.