When the coronavirus first started spreading globally, many feared the day it would come to Africa.
Those fears were well-founded.
Our healthcare systems wouldn’t be able to deal with hundreds of thousands of positive cases, as they’re seeing in America at the moment.
In a bizarre twist of fate, though, it seemed at first as if African nations have excelled at controlling the virus.
The contrast between the rate of infection on the continent and that of the world superpowers is turning heads.
In Nigeria, this is due to the swift action of our leaders.
Lockdown measures were imposed fast, and this has certainly helped to curtail the spread.
Other countries in Africa took a similar hardline stance and are also seeing encouraging results.
The seemingly low spread of the disease in Africa has the international community watching us closely.
There have been many theories as to why the spread is lower here.
One was that Africa is outside of the major airline routes.
Another was that BCG vaccinations, compulsory in many countries here, could provide some protection.
Yet another theory was that it was because it wasn’t yet cold and flu season in the southern hemisphere.
It’s the last of these theories that Nigerians should pay the most attention to.
Could we see a spike in cases when cold and flu season eventually gets here?
It’s a definite possibility, and that means that we’ll all have to brace ourselves for a long winter.
Could It Mean Even More Stringent Lockdowns?
That would depend on the number of local transmission cases.
If we can keep these numbers down, it might be unnecessary to enforce more stringent lockdown laws.
For the moment, only the most populated areas are affected.
If we compare our response to that of the South African government, you might even count ourselves lucky.
The South African government has locked down the entire country.
The initial lockdown period was due to end on April 16th.
Instead, due to the high numbers of local transmissions, the lockdown was extended for a further two weeks.
To make matters worse, the government has banned the sale of cigarettes and alcohol as well as anything not deemed essential.
Citizens could buy food, medicine, and perhaps baby goods, but not much else.
The hard lockdown finally eased at the end of May.
On the first of June, measures eased further and the country is returning to something closer to normalcy.
South Africa, while appearing to be successful at flattening the curve initially, has proven that hard lockdowns don’t work.
The move has proven very difficult for the country’s economy.
Nigerians know how that feels.
Our lockdown has eased, but we’ve felt the pressure on our economy.
We’ve been more successful at keeping local transmissions down, but COVID-19 hit at the worst possible time.
We were just starting to reverse the steep increase in unemployment in the country.
In 2019, 6.11% of our people were unemployed.
That’s a high figure, but better than the 6.24% in 2016.
By contrast, the unemployment rate in the United States in 2019 was 3.87%.
That said, with America now having more than 1, 870,000 cases of COVID-19, forecasts for its unemployment rate aren’t good.
Experts predict that COVID-19 will have a severe effect on the American economy.
They feel that the unemployment rate could shoot up to as much as 30%.
That’s more than three times higher than the country’s peak unemployment rate of 9% in 1979.
What does this have to do with Nigeria?
If the effects are going to be as bad as that in one of the world’s strongest economies, we must take note.
We have to do everything that we can to prevent the spread of coronavirus.
The more effectively we contain the spread, the better our chances are of protecting our economy.
It’s time for everyone to do their part. If we work together, we can stop the spread of COVID-19.
Branka is the project manager of Whattobecome
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