Africa: A Perfect Storm Brewing

AFRICA

A Perfect, Brewing Storm

Yassin Hussein Moyo, 13, was standing on his balcony in a Nairobi shantytown when a police bullet struck and killed him.

That was because of a violent police crackdown on anyone breaking the country’s dusk-to-dawn curfew, one of the harshest reactions to the novel coronavirus anywhere. He was the third victim of the pandemic – and only one had died of the actual disease.

“The question the community is asking…is why are you sending the police to come to the community with live bullets?” Faith Mumbe Kasina of the Kiamaiko Social Justice Center asked in the Washington Post.

Other Africans are asking the same question. In South Africa, police have cracked down on citizens who violate public health restrictions, often cruelly, forcing them to perform push-ups and other kinds of corporal punishment, Agence France-Presse wrote. Similar brutality has been seen in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The lockdowns and crackdowns are harsh. So are the forecasts.

Africa is arguably on its way to buckling under the coronavirus pandemic, some say. The virus was slow to reach the continent, but the numbers of infected are rising steadily – more than 4,300 cases were tallied as of last week across 46 countries – compelling governments to take dramatic actions perhaps because they know they are not well-prepared for the potential catastrophe to come.

In Kenya’s Kibera, one of the largest slums in Africa, measures to combat the virus are hard to adopt. Residents can’t social distance because they live – often three generations of families – in 100-square-foot shacks in densely packed neighborhoods with a few shared toilet facilities, Fast Company reported. They can’t wash their hands easily because clean running water is scarce.

Many Kenyans watch television, see Italy and the US failing to contain the pandemic and wonder how their poor country will cope. Before the coronavirus arrived, Kenya – along with Somalia and Ethiopia – was struggling to stop a plague of locusts, the worst seen in 70 years: It is threatening the food security and livelihoods of 25 million people, CNBC reported.

Meanwhile, much of what’s difficult in Africa in terms of containment measures mirrors the situation of the Ebola outbreak in West Africa between 2013 and 2016, namely culture.

For example, in Ghana, people are crestfallen over prohibitions on funerals, handshaking and congregating at church, the BBC reported. Such moves go against local culture. Mourning is a public, dramatic community experience that drives an entire economy of caterers, tailors, singers, drivers and others. Ghanaians have a saying, “Only enemies refuse to shake hands.” Some churches won’t close. Instead, they are holding prayer ceremonies to banish the virus.

Then there are the fragile healthcare systems with few resources. In Mali, there is an estimated one ventilator per 1 million people – about 20 in all, reported USA Today. Kenya, a country of more than 50 million, has 550 intensive-care beds. Many sub-Saharan nations have few healthcare workers, some have no isolation wards. Few doctors and nurses have safety equipment and their countries, no way to manufacture it. And diagnostic tests? Forget it, says Olaniyi Ayobami, a doctor in Ibadan, Nigeria.

Still, the coming economic crisis in Africa might dwarf the public health nightmare, Quartz wrote. Many African nations depend on the exports of commodities like agricultural goods, metals, minerals and oils. Their prices are plummeting. Others must import goods in US dollars whose value is skyrocketing as their currencies weaken. And they can’t substitute locally made good for many imports easily, or at all.

At the same time, CNBC said that the importance of China to Africa’s bilateral trade, and a slump in Chinese demand, has been a huge hit to African exporters over the past few months.

Meanwhile, a lack of reliable electricity and internet access means few white-collar workers and bureaucrats can work from home.

In Nigeria, like elsewhere, those in the informal economy such as food vendors, cleaners, hairdressers and others earn their living day to day, CNN reported. Lockdowns are preventing them from working. If they don’t work, they don’t eat. Others who are among the 85 percent of Africans who live on less than $5.50 a day are facing similar problems. There is little chance of the type of financial help for them seen in Europe or the US.

“It is hunger I am worried about, not a virus. I even heard it doesn’t kill young people,” Debby Ogunsola told the BBC.

That might be the saving grace of Africa during the pandemic, experts say: The average age of the continent’s population is 20. Most young adults seem to escape the illness or only get mildly sick.

As the pandemic spreads, that’s something to hope for.