Re: Corona Virus: is it the beginning of the end?
Yesterday a lockdown was also announced over here starting friday. We were at 402 confirmed cases in the country when this was announced, apparently it's 554 today (but fortunately no deaths yet). It's also starting to hit the rest of Africa. Zimbabwe announced two confirmed cases and one death (which obviously suggests that the actual number of cases is much more than those 2). Nigeria also had their first death recently, and I think Ghana has two deaths. Rwanda went into total lockdown a few days ago at only 17 confirmed cases, we should have maybe also done this earlier. Our one advantage is that we have a pretty young population on average. But we also have a lot of people living with HIV, TB and other conditions which make them more susceptible to any infection, especially a respiratory one. And then we also have poor people living in small, high density clusters. The government telling people to keep their distance and wash their hands is pretty meaningless for those people who live with their whole family in a single shack with no access to water. Some parts of the country have been dealing with a drought for a long time now, to the extent that in several towns the taps have run dry because their dams are empty, so those people also don't have access to water. And shops are being emptied of hand sanitisers by mostly upper and middle class people who don't really need them, so those who do need them and can actually afford it can't get them anyway. There are obviously countries who have it much worse. I know DRC, CAR and Somalia all also reported at least one case. I have no idea how countries like that where the government doesn't control all of the country's territory and with very weak systems can possibly respond to an outbreak. DRC has been struggling with ebola and they had a hard time containing it. It's going to be especially hard in countries in civil war like Libya, I doubt it's possible for them to do anything if it reaches them.
The other issue, even in a best case scenario where the shutdown completely stops the spread and we don't have to worry about the virus anymore, we're pretty screwed economically. It's a standard lockdown like in many other countries, meaning everyone must stay in their homes accept to buy essentials or get medical care, and all none-essential businesses have to close. The country has already been struggling economically before this, and we would have likely had a recession regardless, but now it's going to be much worse. A lot of small businesses are likely not going to survive having no business for this long, and we already have a very high unemployment rate as it is. And all the people who work in low-end manual jobs like domestic workers etc who rely on their small incomes to support them and their families are also screwed. Same with the people in the informal economy, who make their living from small spaza shops or as street vendors for example. The government is trying to do what they can to soften the blow but there's only so much they can do. This thing is going to have some serious long-term consequences and ruin a lot of lives.
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