escape the pandemic's economic impact. an economist claimed ghana's economy would crumble if there was another lock down. the md of imf claimed economies of african countries needed to reset to recover from the impact of the pandemic. finance mof was claimed to have disbursed an amount to ecg and gwcl for part payment of the government's package. government spent more than 4.7 billion ghana cedis due to the pandemic. ghana's financial markets were claimed to be reacting differently as initially expected. banks in ghana were said to have disbursed more than gh¢14 billion to businesses of ghanaians since the outbreak of the pandemic. health issues the ceo of a hospital revealed sex does not guard against covid-19. covid-19 was claimed to have affected the od free campaign in the upper west region. a doctor claimed the country could record cases of non-infectious disease because of post-covid-19 complications. the impact of the virus on cancer was claimed to have 'worse' outcomes, and also on the country's depleted blood banks. vaccine the un-partnered covax initiative, which aims to provide equal vaccination for all, sent 600,000 doses of astrazeneca/oxford vaccine to accra. ghana became africa's first nation to receive vaccines from the covax facility. reported cases vaccination card issued after taking the covid-19 vaccine for details see timeline of the covid-19 pandemic in ghana 43 districts claimed to be hot spot of the spread of the virus would be vaccinated. on 2 march, the vaccination exercise began against the virus. 3,321 people were vaccinated on the first day of the vaccination exercise. moh developed measures on how herbal medicines can be used for covid-19 treatment. volta region recorded the uk covid-19 variant. on 18 march, it was reported the two variant were in the country. government responses government revealed it would construct 14 treatment centres for medical waste disposal. government revealed it would introduce a covid-19 levy. government set aside €890 million for the building of 33 health facilities. government was said to start plans for post-covid-19 recovery of the economy of ghana. president akufo-addo claimed 42 million covid-19 vaccines would be purchased by the government. government secured and issued $3 billion since the onset of the pandemic. disinfection and fumigation terminal 3 of meridian port services was disinfected. gps hospital to close some departments for disinfection. bans and restrictions 80 togolese were arrested for allegedly entering ghana illegally. another 80 immigrants were arrested in the bono region. ceo of gta entreated cinema owners in ghana to bear with government due to the restrictions on mass gatherings. economic impacts a blueprint expected to place the country's economy on track was approved by a cabinet. nana akufo-addo claimed the country's gdp was expected to rise due to the impact of the pandemic. osei kyei mensah-bonsu claimed ghana's debt stock was due to the impact of the pandemic and others. the gh¢100 billion ghanacares was claimed to help ghana turn the difficulties caused by the pandemic. finance ghana was said to have recorded us$2,650.97 billion worth of fdi amid the pandemic. ghana was claimed to lose gh¢18.9 billion and gh¢22 billion in revenues in 2021 and 2022 respectively, due to the impact of covid-19 on the economy. health issues teenage pregnancy was claimed to have reduced in the upper west region amid the pandemic. it was claimed by dr. akosua owusu-sarpong that the covid-19 vaccine does not cause erectile dysfunction in males. the vaccine was claimed to be safe for nursing mothers. reported cases for details see timeline of the covid-19 pandemic in ghana more than 500,000 ghanaians received the vaccine. government responses government arranged with the private office of sheikh ahmed dalmook al maktoum for the supply of 3.4million doses of sputnik v. bans and restrictions president nana akufo-addo banned church activities and large gatherings during the easter celebration. henry quartey ordered for the closure of all beaches. disinfection and fumigation about 12 football match centres were disinfected. reported cases for details see timeline of the covid-19 pandemic in ghana government response government was claimed to explore the use of bio-metric solutions in the deployment of the covid-19 vaccines. nana akufo-addo claimed the country would receive 350,000 doses of the astrazeneca. bans and restrictions gps shut down the fantasy dome due to an event with no observance of the protocols, later, an investigation was launched for the alleged gathering. nana akufo-addo claimed travellers from ghana should halt or postpone their trips to high-risk covid-19 countries. statistics confirmed new cases per day covid-19 pandemic in ghana by region covid-19 pandemic in ghana by region count of cases per region s.no. region total cases deaths recoveries active cases 1 greater accra region 51,349 - - - 2 ashanti region 15,545 - - - 3 western region 5,856 - - - 4 eastern region 4,200 - - - 5 central region 3,435 - - - 6 volta region 2,493 - - - 7 bono east region 1,435 - - - 8 western north region 876 - - - 9 northern region 1,654 - - - 10 bono region 1,405 - - - 11 ahafo region 718 - - - 12 upper east region 1,319 - - - 13 upper west region 499 - - - 14 oti region 424 - - - 15 savannah region 123 - - - 16 north east region 228 - - - 17 kia travelers 1,684 - - - total 93,243 783 91,146 1,314 as of 13 may 2023 responses disinfection and fumigation from 3 april, over 464 markets were disinfected across the country. the second phase of nationwide fumigation begun in july. on 23 september, the moe with ges collaborated with zoomlion to disinfect and fumigate all shs across ghana to pave way for the reopening of schools. over 3700 schools in the greater accra alone, were fumigated. a disinfection company appealed to the government to train youth in the disinfection exercise. bans and lockdowns on 15 march, at 10 pm, president nana akufo-addo banned all public gatherings including conferences, workshops, funerals, festivals, political rallies, church activities and other related events to reduce the spread of covid-19 at a press briefing on the state of covid-19. basic schools, senior high schools and universities, both public and private, have also been closed. only bece and wassce candidates were permitted to remain in school under social distancing protocols. on 30 march, the partial lock down of accra and kumasi took effect. only members of the executive, legislature and the judiciary; and some services such as those that were involved in the production, distribution and marketing of food, beverages, pharmaceuticals, medicine, paper and plastic packages, media and telecommunications were exempted from the restrictions. in april 2020, at a press briefing, the director general of the ghana health service, announced the commencement of local production of nose masks as part of efforts to arrest the spread of the pandemic. according to the new executive instrument, e.i. 164, signed by the president on 15 june 2020, people who refuse to wear face masks in public could face jail terms of between 4–10 years or a fine of between ghs12,000 (approx us$2,065) and ghs60,000 (approx us$10,320) or both would be made. this came after the mandatory wearing of nose masks traveling to ghana from countries which had recorded over 200 positive covid-19 cases was strongly discouraged with non-admittance of such travelers; this restriction did not however apply to ghanaian citizens and people with resident permits. all of the country's borders were later closed from midnight of sunday 22 march. passport services were also suspended. financial response royal air force flights delivering medical supplies for ghana medical aid on 11 march, president nana akufo-addo directed the minister of finance, ken ofori-atta, to make the cedi equivalent of $us100 million available to enhance ghana's coronavirus preparedness and response plan. the ghana covid-19 private sector fund was also initiated by the government of ghana to aid in the fight against the pandemic. the president disclosed that the government, through the moe, planned a relief package for private schools who were affected by covid-19 induced shutdown of schools. the finance minister claimed in his report that the government spent about 54.3 million ghana cedis to provide cooked and uncooked food to the vulnerable during the 3-week lockdown. the government stated that it would provide free electricity and water for the rest of 2020. air forces africa delivers medical supplies to ghana the parliament of ghana granted a tax waiver of ghs174 million cedis (equivalent to us$30 million) on income taxes of frontline workers. this spanned for three months from july to september 2020. the minister of employment and labor relations claimed government's intervention in easing of restrictions restored over 2,849 out of the over 11,000 job losses due to the pandemic. government established a committee to bring about modalities to implement the national unemployment insurance scheme to help those who lost their jobs during the pandemic. government supported entrepreneurs with disability in the northern, north east and savannah regions with an amount of gh¢200,000 to help them in their businesses due to the impact of covid-19. government released packages to partners in the tourism industry and other businesses to help them against the pandemic. medical response the government begun the construction of various treatment centres across the country to help in the national covid-19 treatment. this includes the ghana infectious disease centre there was also the expansion of covid-19 treatment centres across ghana in order to make available more logistics and beds for covid-19 management. ghana begun the local production of nose masks as well as medical gowns, head covers, and medical scrubs. one million face masks are produced a day. the government claimed that about 18.8million face masks have been manufactured by the country. government has set aside 80million ghana cedis to pay frontline health workers' incentive package as part of ghana's covid-19 pandemic preparedness. the ghs received a vehicle and sets of ppes from uk to help in the elimination of diseases in the country. the national ambulance service underwent some training amid covid-19. china provided ghana with a medical team to stop the spread of the virus in the country. testing in early march, the nmimr was the only facility capable of testing for covid-19 in ghana. moreover, it had a very limited supply of test kits. ghana therefore adopted the pool testing as a means for covid-19 testing. during testing, individual specimens are combined into pools. when a pool tests positive, then each individual specimen of that particular pool is tested. initially, the nmimr tested a pool size of fives, which was later increased to ten. in october, the president stated that across ghana, the government has expanded covid-19 testing facilities from the initial two to 16, which include those of private sector providers. additionally some hospitals across the country have been equipped with the capacity to test for covid-19. on 30 july, the ghs claimed it was expanding covid-19 testings to hospitals across ghana. the government distributed 50,000 pcr testing kits and other kits to covid-19 testing facilities across ghana. laboratory equipment and supplies were delivered by the government, improving the testing capacity of the nation. technology and innovations government relaunched the gh covid-19 tracker app after it was launched on 13 april. the use of veronica buckets have become very popular in ghana following the outbreak of the novel coronavirus as it is used for hand washing to stem the spread of the virus. the solawash, an automated and mobile hand washing machine powered by solar panels was invented by richard kwarteng and his team in kumasi to fight against the covid-19 pandemic. ghana became the first country to use drone aircraft in the fight against the pandemic through the transport of covid-19 test samples. from may 2020, zipline delivered 2,573 covid-19 samples to the nmimr and the kccr. on 15 october, the moh received a covid-19 ai software for detecting the virus on chest x-rays. on 19 october, a digital-based health system introduced a new form of testing covid-19 for passengers and others in the country. both travellers and the general public can be tested from the comfort of their homes or any place of their choice. the municipal director of education of prestea claimed ict changed how education is carried