Minority in Parliament Quotes WRONG July 2 COVID-19 Figures in Statement

The National Democratic Congress (NDC) Members of Parliament, in a statement issued on Thursday July 2, 2020, stated some figures to give an overview of the status of COVID-19 in Ghana. The statement was on the non-compliance of COVID-19 protocols in the ongoing voter registration exercise.

In the statement, which was signed by the Ranking Member for the Parliamentary Select Committee on Health, Kwabena Mintah Akandoh, the minority said Ghana as at July 2, 2020 had recorded 17,741 COVID-19 cases with 112 deaths.

“We want to reiterate that, we the minority in parliament and the NDC party have been consistent in our position that government has not managed the Covid-19 infection situation well as opposed to their self acclaimed glory. As at July 2nd, 2020, Ghana has recorded 17,741 cases, 112 deaths and recoveries/discharges were about 13,268,” the ninth paragraph of the statement stated.

The statement has been shared in various political groups on WhatsApp and has been republished on various news websites including citinewsroom.com and myjoyonline.com.

Factcheckghana.com looked at the claim and found the figures to be misleading.

Explanation:

In fact-checking the COVID-19 case management figures stated by the minority in the recent publication, we noticed that it was published around 7pm on 2nd July.

The Ghana Health Service’s officialCOVID-19 portal, at the time of publication of the minority’s statement on July 2, 2020, had the following numbers for COVID-19 cases, recoveries and deaths in Ghana.

Number of cases: 18,134

Number of deaths:117

Number of recoveries: 13,550

These figures are completely different from those shared in the statement by the minority.

Hours before the minority released the statement, the Ministry of Information held a press briefing where the Director General of the Ghana Health Service, Dr. Patrick Kumah Aboagye announced the country’s COVID-19 case situation. [At 4:33 minutes] he said: “On the brief on the status of Ghana’s case update, we have now recorded 18,630 positive cases with a total recovery of 14,046. The current reported death is 117 accounting for 0.63% of the positives.”

“We have active cases of 4,467. These people are being managed at the treatment sites, isolation centers and some at home management depending on the situation.”

The figures announced by Dr. Kumah Aboagye as we note, are also different from the ones quoted by the minority in their statement for the said date.

Based on the above information, we find that the minority did not source the COVID-19 case management data it used in its statement from any official source on July 2, 2020 as it makes it appear.

Even on July 1, 2020, the figures are different from what the minority quoted.

Our further checks however showed that data used by the minority was the situation much earlier; June 30, 2020.

Quoting COVID-19 data of June 30, 2020 and claiming it to be the situation for July 2, 2020 creates a false impression and misleads the public.

We therefore conclude that the COVID-19 case figures quoted in the minority’s for July 2, 2020 are wrong.