Police have warned that the ongoing operation to enforce the imposition of restrictions on the movement of people will get tough from Monday, April 13, 2020.

Director-General of Tactical Operations at the Ghana Police Service, DCOP Boadu Peprah, said Sunday that after three weeks of the lockdown, the police expect the public to adhere to the restrictions on movements and mass gatherings in Greater Accra, Greater Kumasi and other parts of the country with ease.

“From tomorrow [Monday] going, we are going to be tough on them,” he said.

The Operation COVID Safety came into force on March 30 to enforce a lockdown directive by the President as part of measures to hold the spread of the new coronavirus in the country.

The task force is made up of a combined team of the police, the Armed Forces and other security agencies.

Speaking in a short interview, DCOP Peprah said:

"Now we have entered the third week we expect everybody to stay at home. If they refuse to stay at home, now we are going to arrest people that we see loitering. We expect everybody to respect the Presidential order.

"Stay at home and protect yourself. We don’t want people to be loitering. Trotros busing people to Accra Central; we are not going to allow that."

The initial 14-day restriction on movements in parts of the Greater Accra Region and Kumasi, in the Ashanti Region, was extended by seven more days last week by President Nana Akufo-Addo.

According to the President, although the efforts to contain the spread of the virus have been successful, the country was not yet out of the woods.

Meanwhile, the confirmed Covid-19 cases in Ghana have risen sharply by 158 to 566.

On its Covid-19 website, the Service said a number of measures introduced to control and prevent further spread of the disease has resulted in the sudden increase in cases.

“As of April 11, a total of 37,954 persons have been tested with 566 being positive for COVID-19. The breakdown of the 566 positive cases are as follows: four have been treated, discharged and tested negative, 552 cases have been categorised as mild disease on treatment, two moderate to severe cases, none currently on ventilators and eight have died.

“Of the 566 confirmed COVID-19 cases, 292 were reported from the routine surveillance, 159 from enhanced surveillance activities and 115 from travellers under mandatory quarantine in both Accra and Tamale.”

Greater Accra remains Ghana’s epicentre of the outbreak with 452 cases.