Government has directed security agencies to enforce the safety protocols in the country, especially the wearing of face masks and to clamp down on persons flouting the precautionary protocol.

The move stems from the recent surge in Covid-19 cases recorded in the country within the past month, with active cases having risen from 398 to 1,156 as of November 5.

Information Minister, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah reiterated calls to the nation's security agencies to ensure compliance with the protocols, urging citizens to also take up the responsibility of protecting themselves from the virus.

"We will reiterate a call to the security agencies and to the managers, particularly of enclosed places, to ensure that compliance with the wearing of masks at least, is enforced. All of us as citizens have the responsibility of ensuring that the other parts of it [like washing of hands and using a sanitizer] are taken into consideration,” he said.

His comments follow that of the Director-General of the Ghana Health Service (GHS), Dr. Patrick Kuma-Aboagye who indicated that data from a report suggests that the total number of people still wearing masks has declined.

According to him, although there is an increase in the correct wearing of masks, over 70 per cent of Ghanaians surveyed still do not wear facemasks.

“The survey reveals that those wearing masks correctly moved from 44% to 10%, but in some areas, it was as low as 5%. We have also seen that people who are not wearing masks at all had moved all the way to 72%. And then people who were wearing masks but not wearing them correctly had declined, which means people have learnt how to wear the mask”.

Meanwhile, the Information Minister, supported by the Director-General of the GHS, has refuted claims that political activities are the cause for the surge in Covid-19 cases.

He maintains that markets and workplaces are responsible for the increase and called for them to be well managed in that regard.

“The number of new cases recorded has literally doubled in the month of October. If you compare that with the mask-wearing data….the observation is that this spike at the end of October, [which the data shows is mostly concentrated in the Greater Accra Region] is grossly as a result of non-compliance with the preventive protocol of wearing the mask," he noted.