Did scientists cry wolf, which condemned Africa as the scourge of the world’s ravaging COVID-19 infections?A random look at predictions shows a frightening result. For example, the World Health Organization for Africa predicted in April 2020 that coronavirus cases in Africa can grow exponentially, from a few thousand to mid-April to 10 million in the next 3 to six months.
The United Nations Economic Commission for Africa made a more appalling prediction. By its own model, Africa can enjoy 1. 2 billion infections and 3. 3 million deaths at worst. Modeling through Imperial College London finished the picture with 300,000 deaths at best.
Well, it’s been more than 8 months since the virus was discovered and more than six months since it arrived in Africa, through Egypt on February 14, 2020, and followed the case of the moment in Algeria on February 25. Nigeria recorded its first case two days later. As in Algeria, the Italian patient, returning home from Italy, where infections were already multiplying. Although the global landscape is frightening with more than 27 million cases as of September 7, 2020, only just over a million have occurred in Africa, up from the expected 10 million.
What happened to the predictions? We won’t have to be arrogant in answering this question, but it takes a two-pointed technique to have a balanced answer.
First, what points led to a terrible prognosis? There are 3 main ones. First, there are too many crowded spaces across Africa, which can speed up the infection rate. Cities, towns and villages inspire crowds due to lack of housing, poverty and tension in network culture. In addition, Africans are in the total network of people other than individualists. They congregate in small spaces in cities, towns, villages and even at home.
In Nigeria’s depressed communities, for example, many low-income staff gather in Face-Me-I-Face-You housing, where single rooms face each other, other families, each with up to six or more occupants. There can be up to ten of those rooms, five in each aspect of a non-unusual narrow corridor. The occupants represent a common kitchen and one or two bathrooms in the space.
Beyond livingArray, grocery stores, local markets, neighborhood shops, car parks and other clusters are also potential sites for superpropagation of coronavirus disease.
Second, Africa’s fitness infrastructure is weak in several respects: the few smart hospitals are inaccessible to the public, while so-called general hospitals and number one fitness centres lack mandatory equipment, fitness workers, mandatory workers’ bodies and medical supplies. , which monitors global fitness systems, rightly feared that Africa’s fitness infrastructure could not cope with a pandemic as devastating as COVID-19, but continents with stronger fitness infrastructure have succumbed to the virus at much higher rates than Africa.
Factor 3 is the combination of poor leadership, weak establishments and widespread governance failure across the continent. It was feared that many African leaders would not be able to meet the COVID-19 challenge and that those who could simply gather political will would be hampered by weak establishments, corruption and poor implementation.
However, it should be noted that the terrible predictions of a maximum infection rate on the continent have been covered. Michel Yao, WHO’s head of emergency operations in Africa, said the highest figures for Africa were the result of an interim model. As a result, the resulting projection could replace if others replaced their behavior on time. This was the case during the Ebola epidemic, which led to a collapse of the worst-case scenarios.
This leads to the moment of predictions, why haven’t they been done so far?
A popular explanation is the role of cross-coverage immunity founded on African exposure to a variety of infections to which they have developed some immunity. However, in the absence of a clinical study, cross-coverage immunity lacks explanatory force as coverage opposed to COVID. 19. As far as we know, this virus is only a clinical technique that mere speculation.
Another explanation is in The Demographics of Africa: Africa’s huge youth population, children under the age of 25, who account for about 60 percent of the general population, have prevented the explosion of infections. In addition, it is also true that fewer Africans enter the eighty-year-old age group, which has been shown to succumb smoothly to the virus. Africa’s average life expectancy of approximately 62 years is 10 to 20 years less than on other continents. years of life in Africa have been poorly healthy.
Viewed from this perspective, demographics are in fact a double bag for Africa. On the one hand, the expected merit of young people for the continent has not yet been fully tested because much of the continent has been blocked or under a type of restriction or restriction. Let’s see what happens when schools and universities reopen in the last quarter of this year Ongoing experiments in Europe and North America already show that other young people are not only infected, but are also organizing or attending widespread events. who would possibly come home to infect the elderly.
On the other hand, Africa has remained in the lead with its poor sanitation infrastructure and crowded spaces, although there are more deaths among the elderly, the younger population has the infection rate on the continent, which can be worse when schools they reopen absolutely and absolutely. all restrictions are removed.
In the meantime, African leaders at the federal and state levels are identified for immediate implementation of closures and relative compliance with threat mitigation measures in urban areas. Certainly, these measures have reduced infections. It is also vital to continue to protect rural farming communities from the virus, keeping urban dwellers away in the meantime.
Of course, we’ve learned a lot about COVID-19, but a lot is still unknown. Horrible predictions will have to be stored in the bag, rather than thrown away completely, until an effective vaccine is available.