Africa Has Defied COVID-19 predictions

[jmdrake]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...-be-surprised/

Africa has defied the covid-19 nightmare scenarios. We shouldn’t be surprised.

Opinion by
Karen Attiah
Global Opinions editor
September 22, 2020 at 8:22 a.m. CDT
After the novel coronavirus first appeared in Africa in late February, Ghana’s government decided it would take no chances. Ghanaian citizens were soon put under lockdown, and travel between major cities was banned. Then President Nana Akufo-Addo announced the closure of the country’s land and sea borders.

At the time, my dad was in Ghana visiting family, and he faced the prospect of being stuck until commercial flights resumed. As experts predicted how the pandemic would be a unique and devastating disaster in Africa, my siblings and I scrambled to get my father a spot on a State Department repatriation flight for U.S. citizens. We rushed to get him out because we thought he would be better off in the United States.

But after he got back to Texas, the number of cases there started to rise, and I joked with him that he would have been safer in Ghana. “Ghana is doing much better with this than America,” he had said after I picked him up from the airport, amused that I sprayed down the entire car with disinfectant before making him sit in the back seat, away from me.

Full coverage of the coronavirus pandemic

News reports and opinion articles have posited that corruption and a lack of health-care infrastructure meant that Africa was a “time bomb” waiting to explode. Rampant poverty and a lack of effective governance would cause the dark continent to fall apart under the weight of a public health emergency. The world, the experts said, should prepare to offer aid, loans and debt forgiveness to African governments — in other words, they should prepare to save Africa.

No need.

While so much about the virus and how it operates remains unclear, sub-Saharan Africa so far has dodged a deadly wave of coronavirus cases. Many factors have contributed to this. A number of West African nations already had a pandemic response infrastructure in place from the Ebola outbreak of late 2013 to 2016. Just six years ago, Liberia lost nearly 5,000 people to Ebola. At the beginning of this year, Liberia began screening for covid-19 at airports. Travelers coming in from countries with more than 200 cases were quarantined. To date, Liberia, a country of some 5 million, has 1,335 cases and around 82 deaths.

After the Ebola pandemic, Senegal set up an emergency operations center to manage public health crises. Some covid-19 test results come back in 24 hours, and the country employs aggressive contact tracing. Every coronavirus patient is given a bed in hospital or other health-care facility. Senegal has a population of 16 million, but has only 302 registered deaths. Several countries have come up with innovations. Rwanda, a country of 12 million, also responded early and aggressively to the virus, using equipment and infrastructure that was in place to deal with HIV/AIDS. Testing and treatment for the virus are free. Rwanda has recorded only 26 deaths.

As the United States approaches 200,000 deaths, the West seems largely blind to Africa’s successes. In recent weeks, headline writers seem to be doing their hardest to try to reconcile Western stereotypes about Africa with the reality of the low death rates on the continent. The BBC came under fire for a since-changed headline and a tweet that read “Coronavirus in Africa: Could poverty explain mystery of low death rate?” The New York Post published an article with the headline, “Scientists can’t explain puzzling lack of coronavirus outbreaks in Africa.”

It’s almost as if they are disappointed that Africans aren’t dying en masse and countries are not collapsing. While Black Americans have been disproportionately contracting covid-19 and dying, Africa’s performance shows, as I quoted a Kenyan anthropologist saying in May, “being a black person in this world doesn’t kill you, but being a black person in America clearly can.”

This pandemic has coincided with a global movement challenging anti-Black racism and white supremacy. This should have been a moment for media outlets to challenge corrosive narratives about Africa and the idea that Africans are not capable of effective policy-making. We could be learning from the experiences that Africans and their governments have had with pandemics and viral diseases, including Ebola and AIDS.

Instead, the media has largely ignored the policy successes out of Africa. In doing so, Western media is reinforcing colonial narratives of Black inferiority and the inability of Black nations to govern themselves at all, much less govern better than resource-rich White nations.

We are interested in hearing about how the struggle to reopen amid the pandemic is affecting people's lives. Please tell us yours.

None of this is to say there have not been missteps and challenges on the continent. In countries such as Kenya, police officers have used coronavirus restrictions as a cover to escalate police brutality against citizens — police killed 15 people while enforcing curfew restrictions. Misinformation has spread online, making things harder for health-care professionals.

But overall, African countries have made great efforts to contain the coronavirus, and citizens so far have escaped the nightmare predictions. African lives have been saved thanks to the hard work of many dedicated health-care workers and the collective responsibility of communities.

In this global pandemic, Africa’s success stories matter more than ever.

[Brian4Liberty]

So the point is that lockdowns work, and there is systemic racism in America preventing any reporting on it?

[dannno]

“Scientists can’t explain puzzling lack of coronavirus outbreaks in Africa.”

This pandemic has coincided with a global movement challenging anti-Black racism and white supremacy. This should have been a moment for media outlets to challenge corrosive narratives about Africa and the idea that Africans are not capable of effective policy-making. We could be learning from the experiences that Africans and their governments have had with pandemics and viral diseases, including Ebola and AIDS.

Wow, what a pile of crap. This disease has really exposed how bad establishment scientists and the left are at critical thinking.

It's EXTREMELY obvious WHY Africa has such a low death rate of COVID compared to other parts of the world, and it has nothing to do with their healthcare infrastructure.

It has to do with the fact that the median age in most African countries is in their TEENS and 20s, and COVID IS NOT deadly for young people. The median age of Americans is 38.

Median age in years
Angola	15.9
Malawi	16.5
Zambia	16.8
Burundi	17

[John-G]

Wow, what a pile of crap. This disease has really exposed how bad establishment scientists and the left are at critical thinking.

It's EXTREMELY obvious WHY Africa has such a low death rate of COVID compared to other parts of the world, and it has nothing to do with their healthcare infrastructure.

It has to do with the fact that the median age in most African countries is in their TEENS and 20s, and COVID IS NOT deadly for young people. The median age of Americans is 38.

Median age in years
Angola	15.9
Malawi	16.5
Zambia	16.8
Burundi	17

That maybe true but a country like Nigeria with very high density areas and a population of 180 million people has about 1000 deaths. Even with a younger populations and maybe a couple of nursing homes. That number is still very remarkable. To understand the pop density of Nigeria, we have 180 million people living in space smaller than texas and about 80% of that population live in the big cities.

Its not just median age at play. Also we do not have flu seasons in Nigeria. Flu virus is not a things so maybe the new virus just like the flu has a hard time sustaining itself in the continent.

The sad part is that now that they have beat this hoax of a virus by locking down and destroying what little they have, there is now hunger and poverty facing them. Foolish africans doing what they west(WHO) told em to do. The West can sustain their lockdown for months because they are rich but foolish africans cannot do the same, now people will die for their foolishness.

[dannno]

That maybe true but a country like Nigeria with very high density areas and a population of 180 million people has about 1000 deaths. Even with a younger populations and maybe a couple of nursing homes. That number is still very remarkable. To understand the pop density of Nigeria, we have 180 million people living in space smaller than texas and about 80% of that population live in the big cities.

Its not just median age at play. Also we do not have flu seasons in Nigeria. Flu virus is not a things so maybe the new virus just like the flu has a hard time sustaining itself in the continent.

The sad part is that now that they have beat this hoax of a virus by locking down and destroying what little they have, there is now hunger and poverty facing them. Foolish africans doing what they west(WHO) told em to do. The West can sustain their lockdown for months because they are rich but foolish africans cannot do the same, now people will die for their foolishness.

The median age of Nigerians is 17.9, the median age of the US is 38.

There is a 99.995% survival rate for people under 25, there is a 95% survival rate for people over 70. There is a sliding scale, this disease does not affect people under 40 much at all. Half of the people in the US are over 40, statistically almost nobody in Nigeria is over 40.

[Voluntarist]

Per registered decision, member has been banned for violating community standards as interpreted by TheTexan (respect his authoritah) as authorized by Brian4Liberty Ruling

May God have mercy on his atheist, police-hating, non-voting, anarchist soul.

[dannno]

There was a story a few weeks back about how the major genetic risk factor for severe COVID-19 is inherited from Neanderthals. There's not a lot of Neanderthal-inherited DNA in Africa.

Yet black people are dying of COVID much more in THIS country than other ethnic groups. That could be as simple as lack of vitamin D, people with darker skin require more vitamin D. People with low vitamin D don't tend to deal well with Covid.

However it seems to highlight that black people in the US have a much higher life expectancy than their African counterparts, who are dealing with the disease much better because the old people have already died off from other things. Probably because white supremacy or something.

[John-G]

The median age of Nigerians is 17.9, the median age of the US is 38.

There is a 99.995% survival rate for people under 25, there is a 95% survival rate for people over 70. There is a sliding scale, this disease does not affect people under 40 much at all. Half of the people in the US are over 40, statistically almost nobody in Nigeria is over 40.

Median number just means the middle number. Which means one half of the country is under 17.9 and the other half is above 17.9. That doesn't follow that statistically virtually nobody is above 40. I can't find the pop breakdown but there are millions and millions of people above 40 yrs old in the country and out of that population in a very dense and close knit country, about 1000 died of covid. More people have died in Nevada than the whole country of Nigeria. Also, malaria alone kills 100x more people than covid and just like with covid, the young also fairs better with it than the old.

[dannno]

Median number just means the middle number. Which means one half of the country is under 17.9 and the other half is above 17.9. That doesn't follow that statistically virtually nobody is above 40. I can't find the pop breakdown but there are millions and millions of people above 40 yrs old in the country and out of that population in a very dense and close knit country, about 1000 died of covid. More people have died in Nevada than the whole country of Nigeria. Also, malaria alone kills 100x more people than covid and just like with covid, the young also fairs better with it than the old.

What do they use in Nigeria to treat Malaria?

[John-G]

What do they use in Nigeria to treat Malaria?

Halfan, nivaquine, cholorquine(and more expensive Hyroxy version), cinchona bark are the top ones. And yes, all of em contain quinine which is also found in hydroxycholorquine

[dannno]

Halfan, nivaquine, cholorquine(and more expensive Hyroxy version), cinchona bark are the top ones. And yes, all of em contain quinine which is also found in hydroxycholorquine

I wonder if any or all of those are good for covid?

It seems we found the rest of the explanation.

[John-G]

I wonder if any or all of those are good for covid?

It seems we found the rest of the explanation.

Also studies have shown this, vitamin d helps with immunity against respiratory viruses and its sunny in the equator(and southern hemisphere) all year round. Sadly the same doesn't apply to plasmodium the pathogen responsible for malaria.

[jmdrake]

So the point is that lockdowns work, and there is systemic racism in America preventing any reporting on it?

I'm not sure how you got that from the article. Does this sound like a lockdown to you?

While so much about the virus and how it operates remains unclear, sub-Saharan Africa so far has dodged a deadly wave of coronavirus cases. Many factors have contributed to this. A number of West African nations already had a pandemic response infrastructure in place from the Ebola outbreak of late 2013 to 2016. Just six years ago, Liberia lost nearly 5,000 people to Ebola. At the beginning of this year, Liberia began screening for covid-19 at airports. Travelers coming in from countries with more than 200 cases were quarantined. To date, Liberia, a country of some 5 million, has 1,335 cases and around 82 deaths.

The one thing people on the right praise Trump for doing is restricting travel from the outside. It sounds like Liberia did that. Some African countries did lock down, some didn't. As for why this isn't being reported on....you tell me. Certainly if the cases had been the overwhelming disaster people were predicting it would have been reported.

[jmdrake]

Wow, what a pile of crap. This disease has really exposed how bad establishment scientists and the left are at critical thinking.

It's EXTREMELY obvious WHY Africa has such a low death rate of COVID compared to other parts of the world, and it has nothing to do with their healthcare infrastructure.

It has to do with the fact that the median age in most African countries is in their TEENS and 20s, and COVID IS NOT deadly for young people. The median age of Americans is 38.

Median age in years
Angola	15.9
Malawi	16.5
Zambia	16.8
Burundi	17

It's not just a low death rate. It's a low infection rate. Liberia has 5 million people. Tennessee has about 7 million. And yet Tennessee had twice as many new cases yesterday as Liberia has total. Liberia locked down its borders. That doesn't sound like a "establishment scientist - leftist" narrative. That might be why this story isn't being more widely reported on.

[John-G]

I'm not sure how you got that from the article. Does this sound like a lockdown to you?

While so much about the virus and how it operates remains unclear, sub-Saharan Africa so far has dodged a deadly wave of coronavirus cases. Many factors have contributed to this. A number of West African nations already had a pandemic response infrastructure in place from the Ebola outbreak of late 2013 to 2016. Just six years ago, Liberia lost nearly 5,000 people to Ebola. At the beginning of this year, Liberia began screening for covid-19 at airports. Travelers coming in from countries with more than 200 cases were quarantined. To date, Liberia, a country of some 5 million, has 1,335 cases and around 82 deaths.

The one thing people on the right praise Trump for doing is restricting travel from the outside. It sounds like Liberia did that. Some African countries did lock down, some didn't. As for why this isn't being reported on....you tell me. Certainly if the cases had been the overwhelming disaster people were predicting it would have been reported.

But once the virus was introduced into the liberia, how did they prevent it from spreading? Australia did an even better job at screening their visitors and they have about 25k cases and 900 deaths. I don't think it is the screening that made the difference. I have said this before and I will say it again, RNA respiratory viruses like influenza have a hard time infecting people on the continent. This sounds crazy but we do not have flu seasons in most African countries. The infection rates are almost zero every year.

[dannno]

It's not just a low death rate. It's a low infection rate. Liberia has 5 million people. Tennessee has about 7 million. And yet Tennessee had twice as many new cases yesterday as Liberia has total. Liberia locked down its borders. That doesn't sound like a "establishment scientist - leftist" narrative. That might be why this story isn't being more widely reported on.

Low infection rate due to less testing, because people aren't coming in to get tested, because young people don't tend to get very sick.

I don't think most people who read that article would say, "Oh, they did what Trump did, so maybe he was right".

It seems more like an article trying to say that African countries shouldn't have such a bad reputation, afterall, look at how well they are doing with COVID.. The problem with that is the very thing Africa has a poor reputation for, relatively low life expectancy, is precisely what is causing them to fair well with this particular illness.

[jmdrake]

Yet black people are dying of COVID much more in THIS country than other ethnic groups. That could be as simple as lack of vitamin D, people with darker skin require more vitamin D. People with low vitamin D don't tend to deal well with Covid.

However it seems to highlight that black people in the US have a much higher life expectancy than their African counterparts, who are dealing with the disease much better because the old people have already died off from other things. Probably because white supremacy or something.

Actually vitamin D deficiency is as much a problem in blacks living in Africa as it is anywhere else.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/l...492-9/fulltext

Rather than being angry at success in Africa and automatically thinking the reporting must be wrong or there must be some explanation other than "Africa might be doing something right", you could look at how big pharma in the U.S. is screwing things up. Just look at testing. Early on in the pandemic, when you couldn't get a COVID-19 test even if you wanted one, Senegal came out with a test that gave results in minutes and only cost $1 per test as compared to the $100 test available in America.

https://www.fastcompany.com/90506319...es-for-results

Ghana also pioneered pool testing for COVID 19.

https://www.un.org/africarenewal/new...vid-19-testing

The idea behind pool testing is, in order to save time and money, samples are mixed together and tested at once. So with one test you can clear 100 people as being negative. If the test is positive for the batch then you do the individual testing to find out who is positive.

And in Africa you don't have the FDA threatening people with arrest for promoting herbal and other alternative cures. Actually herbal cures are being promoted.

[dannno]

Actually vitamin D deficiency is as much a problem in blacks living in Africa as it is anywhere else.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/l...492-9/fulltext

Rather than being angry at success in Africa and automatically thinking the reporting must be wrong or there must be some explanation other than "Africa might be doing something right", you could look at how big pharma in the U.S. is screwing things up. Just look at testing. Early on in the pandemic, when you couldn't get a COVID-19 test even if you wanted one, Senegal came out with a test that gave results in minutes and only cost $1 per test as compared to the $100 test available in America.

https://www.fastcompany.com/90506319...es-for-results

Ghana also pioneered pool testing for COVID 19.

https://www.un.org/africarenewal/new...vid-19-testing

The idea behind pool testing is, in order to save time and money, samples are mixed together and tested at once. So with one test you can clear 100 people as being negative. If the test is positive for the batch then you do the individual testing to find out who is positive.

And in Africa you don't have the FDA threatening people with arrest for promoting herbal and other alternative cures. Actually herbal cures are being promoted.

I'm not angry that less people are dying in Africa from COVID, I think that is good. The problem is that the reason is because the median age of their population IS LESS THAT FREAKING HALF of that of the US.. which is clearly, the biggest reason why they are doing so much better..

Younger people do NOT have a problem with this disease for the most part.

All of the people I have EVER read about dying from this in my local community are in their 70s and 80s and had comorbidities. That is largely a first world problem.

I'm not even saying they aren't doing anything right. I just don't see how $1 tests at the store help in any significant way in the longrun. The disease is going to keep spreading, either quickly, or slowly, until herd immunity is reached. The best thing we can do is protect the elderly, and let it spread among the young healthy population quickly. For Africa, pretty much all they have is a young relatively healthy people.

[jmdrake]

Low infection rate due to less testing, because people aren't coming in to get tested, because young people don't tend to get very sick.

That's an assertion made without evidence. With Senegal having test kits 1/100th the cost of the U.S. and Ghana doing pool testing a lot more testing is being done in Africa than you think.

I don't think most people who read that article would say, "Oh, they did what Trump did, so maybe he was right".

And that's all that matters to you isn't it? How this spins pro or against Trump when the article has nothing to do with Trump.

It seems more like an article trying to say that African countries shouldn't have such a bad reputation, afterall, look at how well they are doing with COVID.. The problem with that is the very thing Africa has a poor reputation for, relatively low life expectancy, is precisely what is causing them to fair well with this particular illness.

Africa is doing better on COVID-19 than people predicted. I am sorry (not sorry) that that fact bothers you.

[John-G]

Low infection rate due to less testing, because people aren't coming in to get tested, because young people don't tend to get very sick.

I don't think most people who read that article would say, "Oh, they did what Trump did, so maybe he was right".

It seems more like an article trying to say that African countries shouldn't have such a bad reputation, afterall, look at how well they are doing with COVID.. The problem with that is the very thing Africa has a poor reputation for, relatively low life expectancy, is precisely what is causing them to fair well with this particular illness.

African leader did a lot of harm by following the west with the lockdowns. I don't think anyone is trying to suggest that Africans were exceptional with their fight against Covid. Most people understand that there were innate advantages the continent had over other Northern hemisphere countries.

If you have the chance, watch this presentation by Dennis Rancourt, it explains the reason why the North gets flu while the south completes avoids it. And it has nothing to do with govt and their regulations.



Relevant info in the 1st 6 mins

[Brian4Liberty]

I'm not sure how you got that from the article. Does this sound like a lockdown to you?

From the first paragraph?

Ghana’s government decided it would take no chances. Ghanaian citizens were soon put under lockdown, and travel between major cities was banned.

While so much about the virus and how it operates remains unclear, sub-Saharan Africa so far has dodged a deadly wave of coronavirus cases. Many factors have contributed to this. A number of West African nations already had a pandemic response infrastructure in place from the Ebola outbreak of late 2013 to 2016. Just six years ago, Liberia lost nearly 5,000 people to Ebola. At the beginning of this year, Liberia began screening for covid-19 at airports. Travelers coming in from countries with more than 200 cases were quarantined. To date, Liberia, a country of some 5 million, has 1,335 cases and around 82 deaths.

Some ideas from others sound like explanations. No cold/flu season in Africa, lower ages, and I would guess that there is very little testing of asymptomatic people (and calling them "cases").

The one thing people on the right praise Trump for doing is restricting travel from the outside. It sounds like Liberia did that. Some African countries did lock down, some didn't. As for why this isn't being reported on....you tell me. Certainly if the cases had been the overwhelming disaster people were predicting it would have been reported.

MSM only reports things they believe will be of political advantage to them. Apparently, reports like this are not of value to them. They wouldn't want to call closing borders a good thing. They have a narrative in the US that black people are more vulnerable to COVID, so they wouldn't want to contradict that meme. US MSM rarely reports on internal news from other nations, unless they are trying to demonize some foreign leader.

[jmdrake]

I'm not angry that less people are dying in Africa from COVID, I think that is good. The problem is that the reason is because the median age of their population IS LESS THAT FREAKING HALF of that of the US.. which is clearly, the biggest reason why they are doing so much better..

That's got nothing to do with the low infection rate and Africa has a higher testing rate than you presume. In Senegal you could get a test for a $1 at a time when you couldn't get tested at all in the U.S. even if you wanted to. And Ghana is doing pool testing. That means everybody in the neighborhood gets tested together and health officials zero in and do individual testing if the pool comes up positive.

[jmdrake]

From the first paragraph?

So....you based your entire view of the article about what happened in one country? SMH! If the narrative being pushed was "lockdowns are good" then the only thing that would have been reported is the lockdowns.

Some ideas from others sound like explanations. No cold/flu season in Africa, lower ages, and I would guess that there is very little testing of asymptomatic people (and calling them "cases").

That guess about asymptomatic testing would be wrong. Ghana is doing pool testing which by definition is asymptomatic testing.

MSM only reports things they believe will be of political advantage to them. Apparently, reports like this are not of value to them. They wouldn't want to call closing borders a good thing. They have a narrative in the US that black people are more vulnerable to COVID, so they wouldn't want to contradict that meme. US MSM rarely reports on internal news from other nations, unless they are trying to demonize some foreign leader.

I agree.

[Brian4Liberty]

Is obesity and diabetes a problem in Africa like it is in the US? That is a common comorbidity in deaths in the US.

[John-G]

Is obesity and diabetes a problem in Africa like it is in the US? That is a common comorbidity in deaths in the US.

I don't think obesity and diabetes are a big problem. I know anecdotes doesn't mean much but growing up, I only know of 2 people with diabetes and a few fat kids in my class, but high blood pressure is a prevalent in many adults at least in Nigeria and it is one of the risk factors for severe covid

[Voluntarist]

Per registered decision, member has been banned for violating community standards as interpreted by TheTexan (respect his authoritah) as authorized by Brian4Liberty Ruling

May God have mercy on his atheist, police-hating, non-voting, anarchist soul.

[jkob]

There are about a 1000 different things deadlier and more debilitating floating around in these countries than this bad flu

[jmdrake]

Is obesity and diabetes a problem in Africa like it is in the US? That is a common comorbidity in deaths in the US.

Obesity is a worse problem in the United States. But I keep coming back to infection rates. In the U.S. the infection rate for African Americans is about the same as expected for percentage of the population though the mortality rate is much worse. So lower median age, lower obesity rates etc doesn't explain lower infection rates.

[Brian4Liberty]

It just occurred to me. If Africa can contain and stop COVID, then they won't need Bill Gate's vaccine...

[John-G]

So I was dicking around and searching for top causes of death in different African countries. My first search was Nigeria and the number 1 cause of death was listed as flu/pneumonia. So either that I overlooked this #1 cause of death in Nigeria while growing up or WHO numbers are bogus(dunno why they would make it up, its not like they are selling the vaccines to Africans). Time to call my parents to figure out how I missed this #1 killer.