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Proof that all the Covid theatre of lockdowns and masking was entirely unnecessary
- Thread starter Leongsam
- Start date
Here's what the "experts" said at the beginning of the outbreak.
Perspective by Phillip Carter III
Phillip Carter III is president of the Mead Hill Group and a senior fellow at the Population Institute. A career Foreign Service officer, he previously served as ambassador to Guinea and Côte d’Ivoire, and as deputy to the commander for civil military engagement at the U.S. Africa Command.
March 18, 2020 at 6:00 a.m. EDT
Employees at a Feeds and Seeds shop in Johannesburg wear face masks as a protective measure on March 17. (Emmanuel Croset/Afp Via Getty Images)
I spent most of my career as a Foreign Service officer in Africa, and I served as deputy to the commander for civil military engagement at the U.S. Africa Command during the Ebola crisis of 2014. And now I fear what the novel coronavirus could mean for the health and prosperity of virtually every nation in Africa. On Monday, the World Health Organization reported that the number of confirmed cases had surged to 126 in Egypt, 48 in Algeria, and 51 in South Africa, where President Cyril Ramaphosa just declared a “national emergency.” The same day, Benin, Somalia, Liberia and Tanzania reported their first cases, bringing to 27 the total number of African countries reporting cases.
If the coronavirus gains a solid foothold, Africa could quickly replace Europe as the new center of the pandemic. Many African countries lack the infrastructure and personnel needed to fight a deadly outbreak. Warning of “critical gaps in readiness,” the WHO has assured the African Union that it will do its part. It has already ramped up monitoring and evaluation on the continent, but that’s only a first step. The WHO’s regional director for Africa recently warned that covid-19 has “cast a spotlight on the shortcomings in health systems in the African region.”
Despite the recent increase in cases, the actual situation in Africa is probably worse. So far, the number of reported infections in Africa is still low compared with Europe and China. And the situation could change swiftly. Relative to Europe, Africa’s air traffic is quite low, but with large numbers of Chinese workers still traveling between Africa and China — and internal transmission likely in several countries — the risk of spread is substantial. According to a study in the Lancet, Egypt, Algeria and South Africa face the highest risk of importation from China. But the two most populous countries in Africa — Nigeria and Ethiopia — also have a high risk of importation. Africa, of course, is also threatened by importation from Europe. John Nkengasong, director of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, warns that early detection and containment are crucial. The WHO reports that only eight countries on the continent are prepared to deal with a major outbreak.
Experts hope that covid-19, like some earlier coronavirus outbreaks, will abate when the weather turns warm and humid, but some of the most populous and vulnerable countries in Africa — notably Ethiopia, Kenya and South Africa — have relatively temperate climates. It is also possible that Africa’s youthful age structure will makes it less vulnerable to an outbreak, but the toll on Africa’s elderly population could still be extremely high.
And even if Africa escapes the worst, the continent could remain vulnerable to pandemics for decades to come. The United Nations projects that sub-Saharan Africa’s population will nearly double by 2050. Africa’s urban population will soar from 548 million in 2018 to 1.49 billion by 2050. Its urban slums, where pathogens can spread swiftly, are among the fastest growing in the world. Chronically underfunded public health systems in Africa are battling a host of health threats, including HIV-AIDS, periodic outbreaks of Ebola and measles and more chronic threats such as malaria and tuberculosis.
In the battle against global contagions, sub-Saharan Africa could prove to be the weak link. Protracted conflicts, escalating terrorism and a rising tide of refugees and displaced people compound the challenge. The Africa Center for Strategic Studies reports that the continent now has more than 25 million forcibly displaced people. That’s a nearly fivefold increase since 2005.
Improving health systems in Africa should be a global priority. What happens in Africa — like what happened in Wuhan, China — will have global implications. African governments must do their part. Corruption, poor governance and a lack of trust in public institutions make containment and prevention difficult. But African governments, particularly those fighting major terrorism threats, require international assistance.
The United States, in particular, should ramp up its support, but the Trump administration has largely shunned Africa up to now. Despite an upsurge of terrorism in the African Sahel, the Defense Department reportedly wants to withdraw some of the 6,000 U.S. military personnel stationed on the continent. The president’s fiscal 2021 budget proposed drastic cutbacks in foreign assistance, including a $3 billion cut in global health funds, much of which would be spent in Africa. The Trump administration even proposed major cuts for the two agencies — the WHO and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — that can help stem the spread of covid-19 in Africa.
Hello from Italy. Your future is grimmer than you realize.
The stakes are high for Africa. In making his national disaster declaration, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said, “Never before in the history of our democracy have we been confronted by such a severe situation.” But the stakes are also high for the world. If the coronavirus isn’t contained there, Africa could be the source of future outbreaks, and any hope that this pandemic will be eradicated anytime soon will likely fade. As demonstrated by earlier outbreaks of HIV/AIDS, Zika and Ebola, what happens in Africa can have a global impact. By strengthening Africa’s health-care systems, we can mitigate the impact of this pandemic, and help ward off future pandemics as well.
The coronavirus could devastate Africa
The continent’s governments are not well-prepared to fight a pandemic.
Perspective by Phillip Carter III
Phillip Carter III is president of the Mead Hill Group and a senior fellow at the Population Institute. A career Foreign Service officer, he previously served as ambassador to Guinea and Côte d’Ivoire, and as deputy to the commander for civil military engagement at the U.S. Africa Command.
March 18, 2020 at 6:00 a.m. EDT
Employees at a Feeds and Seeds shop in Johannesburg wear face masks as a protective measure on March 17. (Emmanuel Croset/Afp Via Getty Images)
I spent most of my career as a Foreign Service officer in Africa, and I served as deputy to the commander for civil military engagement at the U.S. Africa Command during the Ebola crisis of 2014. And now I fear what the novel coronavirus could mean for the health and prosperity of virtually every nation in Africa. On Monday, the World Health Organization reported that the number of confirmed cases had surged to 126 in Egypt, 48 in Algeria, and 51 in South Africa, where President Cyril Ramaphosa just declared a “national emergency.” The same day, Benin, Somalia, Liberia and Tanzania reported their first cases, bringing to 27 the total number of African countries reporting cases.
If the coronavirus gains a solid foothold, Africa could quickly replace Europe as the new center of the pandemic. Many African countries lack the infrastructure and personnel needed to fight a deadly outbreak. Warning of “critical gaps in readiness,” the WHO has assured the African Union that it will do its part. It has already ramped up monitoring and evaluation on the continent, but that’s only a first step. The WHO’s regional director for Africa recently warned that covid-19 has “cast a spotlight on the shortcomings in health systems in the African region.”
Despite the recent increase in cases, the actual situation in Africa is probably worse. So far, the number of reported infections in Africa is still low compared with Europe and China. And the situation could change swiftly. Relative to Europe, Africa’s air traffic is quite low, but with large numbers of Chinese workers still traveling between Africa and China — and internal transmission likely in several countries — the risk of spread is substantial. According to a study in the Lancet, Egypt, Algeria and South Africa face the highest risk of importation from China. But the two most populous countries in Africa — Nigeria and Ethiopia — also have a high risk of importation. Africa, of course, is also threatened by importation from Europe. John Nkengasong, director of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, warns that early detection and containment are crucial. The WHO reports that only eight countries on the continent are prepared to deal with a major outbreak.
Experts hope that covid-19, like some earlier coronavirus outbreaks, will abate when the weather turns warm and humid, but some of the most populous and vulnerable countries in Africa — notably Ethiopia, Kenya and South Africa — have relatively temperate climates. It is also possible that Africa’s youthful age structure will makes it less vulnerable to an outbreak, but the toll on Africa’s elderly population could still be extremely high.
And even if Africa escapes the worst, the continent could remain vulnerable to pandemics for decades to come. The United Nations projects that sub-Saharan Africa’s population will nearly double by 2050. Africa’s urban population will soar from 548 million in 2018 to 1.49 billion by 2050. Its urban slums, where pathogens can spread swiftly, are among the fastest growing in the world. Chronically underfunded public health systems in Africa are battling a host of health threats, including HIV-AIDS, periodic outbreaks of Ebola and measles and more chronic threats such as malaria and tuberculosis.
In the battle against global contagions, sub-Saharan Africa could prove to be the weak link. Protracted conflicts, escalating terrorism and a rising tide of refugees and displaced people compound the challenge. The Africa Center for Strategic Studies reports that the continent now has more than 25 million forcibly displaced people. That’s a nearly fivefold increase since 2005.
Improving health systems in Africa should be a global priority. What happens in Africa — like what happened in Wuhan, China — will have global implications. African governments must do their part. Corruption, poor governance and a lack of trust in public institutions make containment and prevention difficult. But African governments, particularly those fighting major terrorism threats, require international assistance.
The United States, in particular, should ramp up its support, but the Trump administration has largely shunned Africa up to now. Despite an upsurge of terrorism in the African Sahel, the Defense Department reportedly wants to withdraw some of the 6,000 U.S. military personnel stationed on the continent. The president’s fiscal 2021 budget proposed drastic cutbacks in foreign assistance, including a $3 billion cut in global health funds, much of which would be spent in Africa. The Trump administration even proposed major cuts for the two agencies — the WHO and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — that can help stem the spread of covid-19 in Africa.
Hello from Italy. Your future is grimmer than you realize.
The stakes are high for Africa. In making his national disaster declaration, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said, “Never before in the history of our democracy have we been confronted by such a severe situation.” But the stakes are also high for the world. If the coronavirus isn’t contained there, Africa could be the source of future outbreaks, and any hope that this pandemic will be eradicated anytime soon will likely fade. As demonstrated by earlier outbreaks of HIV/AIDS, Zika and Ebola, what happens in Africa can have a global impact. By strengthening Africa’s health-care systems, we can mitigate the impact of this pandemic, and help ward off future pandemics as well.
The wonderful of foresight of the WHO.
© WHO/Otto B.
So far, COVID-19 hasn’t hit Africa as hard as other regions, but a new study by the World Health Organization (WHO) predicts the worst of the pandemic is yet to come for the continent, and it may “smolder” for years.
The WHO shared the main findings of the study, which will be published in the British Medical Journal-Global Health, on Thursday. It lays out a worst-case scenario: If no containment measures are put in place – which fortunately, has not been the case so far – 29 million to 44 million people could be infected in the first year, and 83,000 to 190,000 could die in that same time frame. Based on prediction modeling of 47 countries that do not include Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Morocco, Eritrea, Sudan, Somalia and Djibouti – the study also forecasts that the outbreak will peak within four weeks of widespread transmission, which about half of African countries have not yet experienced.
It also estimates that 3.6 million to 5.5 million people could be hospitalized due to COVID-19. As many as 167,000 of them would be severe cases that require oxygen support, and up to 107,000 would be critical cases requiring ventilators. This influx of patients would be a severe strain on health-care systems in the region, most of which already have a significant shortage of health-care workers, personal protective equipment and other necessary resources. In March, the WHO found that on average, health services in Africa have nine intensive care unit (ICU) beds per 1 million people, according to self-reports from 47 countries. And a huge portion of the population may not even be able to access necessary services, whether for coronavirus symptoms or other health needs. For example, the UN warned on Monday that deaths from AIDS-related illnesses in sub-Saharan Africa could double from the disruption of care during the coronavirus pandemic.
However, the disease seems to be spreading slower in Africa than in other regions, possibly because of social and environmental factors like less population movement. That’s why the study warns about a higher risk of exposure in geographically smaller countries and in countries where people can move around more easily due to better transportation infrastructure, like Algeria, South Africa and Cameroon. So far, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention has reported over 64,000 cases of COVID-19 and more than 2,000 deaths – compared to nearly 148,000 deaths in Europe and more than 80,000 deaths just in the U.S.
“While COVID-19 likely won’t spread as exponentially in Africa as it has elsewhere in the world, it likely will smoulder in transmission hotspots,” said Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, the WHO Regional Director for Africa in a virtual press conference on Thursday. “COVID-19 could become a fixture in our lives for the next several years unless a proactive approach is taken by many governments in the region. We need to test, trace, isolate and treat.”
Moeti specifically praised Namibia and Seychelles for their adherence to WHO guidance, and noted that those two countries have not reported any new cases in the last month. However, the WHO delivered its warnings just as several African countries, including Ghana, Nigeria and Botswana, have begun to ease their lockdowns due to the heavy economic toll. The economic impacts have been particularly harsh in Africa, where large portions of the population are daily wage earners in the informal sector, with little to no social safety nets or savings. Therefore, food security has become an even greater issue than it was before. While acknowledging the economic effects of current containment methods, Moeti said that opening up economies had to be progressive, starting with the most vital components of the economy – “not lockdown one day, and open up everything the next.”
In the meantime, the study recommends that countries across the continent, with the help of private partners and other governments, must urgently expand the capacity of primary hospitals and health systems to prepare for the peak that has not yet hit as well as if the disease lingers for years, as the model predicts.
Doing so, says Moeti, can actually leave Africa in a better place after the pandemic than now.
“When we came out of the devastating Ebola outbreak,” she said, “it left in those countries some determination to start up [their COVID-19 response] better. And we’ve seen how Liberia and Sierra Leone, for example, have been able to put in place measures to confront the epidemic that have been quite impressive. That painful learning really enabled them to start off at a different level [than other countries] with a different outlook on how to invest [in health systems].”
Still, she said, the severity of the situation cannot be overlooked, because, as the study suggests, this pandemic could devastate Africa – and may continue to do so long after other parts of the world have put this chapter behind them.
© WHO/Otto B.
How Will COVID-19 Impact Africa? The WHO Releases Pandemic Projections
Joanne Lu May 12, 2020So far, COVID-19 hasn’t hit Africa as hard as other regions, but a new study by the World Health Organization (WHO) predicts the worst of the pandemic is yet to come for the continent, and it may “smolder” for years.
The WHO shared the main findings of the study, which will be published in the British Medical Journal-Global Health, on Thursday. It lays out a worst-case scenario: If no containment measures are put in place – which fortunately, has not been the case so far – 29 million to 44 million people could be infected in the first year, and 83,000 to 190,000 could die in that same time frame. Based on prediction modeling of 47 countries that do not include Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Morocco, Eritrea, Sudan, Somalia and Djibouti – the study also forecasts that the outbreak will peak within four weeks of widespread transmission, which about half of African countries have not yet experienced.
It also estimates that 3.6 million to 5.5 million people could be hospitalized due to COVID-19. As many as 167,000 of them would be severe cases that require oxygen support, and up to 107,000 would be critical cases requiring ventilators. This influx of patients would be a severe strain on health-care systems in the region, most of which already have a significant shortage of health-care workers, personal protective equipment and other necessary resources. In March, the WHO found that on average, health services in Africa have nine intensive care unit (ICU) beds per 1 million people, according to self-reports from 47 countries. And a huge portion of the population may not even be able to access necessary services, whether for coronavirus symptoms or other health needs. For example, the UN warned on Monday that deaths from AIDS-related illnesses in sub-Saharan Africa could double from the disruption of care during the coronavirus pandemic.
However, the disease seems to be spreading slower in Africa than in other regions, possibly because of social and environmental factors like less population movement. That’s why the study warns about a higher risk of exposure in geographically smaller countries and in countries where people can move around more easily due to better transportation infrastructure, like Algeria, South Africa and Cameroon. So far, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention has reported over 64,000 cases of COVID-19 and more than 2,000 deaths – compared to nearly 148,000 deaths in Europe and more than 80,000 deaths just in the U.S.
“While COVID-19 likely won’t spread as exponentially in Africa as it has elsewhere in the world, it likely will smoulder in transmission hotspots,” said Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, the WHO Regional Director for Africa in a virtual press conference on Thursday. “COVID-19 could become a fixture in our lives for the next several years unless a proactive approach is taken by many governments in the region. We need to test, trace, isolate and treat.”
Moeti specifically praised Namibia and Seychelles for their adherence to WHO guidance, and noted that those two countries have not reported any new cases in the last month. However, the WHO delivered its warnings just as several African countries, including Ghana, Nigeria and Botswana, have begun to ease their lockdowns due to the heavy economic toll. The economic impacts have been particularly harsh in Africa, where large portions of the population are daily wage earners in the informal sector, with little to no social safety nets or savings. Therefore, food security has become an even greater issue than it was before. While acknowledging the economic effects of current containment methods, Moeti said that opening up economies had to be progressive, starting with the most vital components of the economy – “not lockdown one day, and open up everything the next.”
In the meantime, the study recommends that countries across the continent, with the help of private partners and other governments, must urgently expand the capacity of primary hospitals and health systems to prepare for the peak that has not yet hit as well as if the disease lingers for years, as the model predicts.
Doing so, says Moeti, can actually leave Africa in a better place after the pandemic than now.
“When we came out of the devastating Ebola outbreak,” she said, “it left in those countries some determination to start up [their COVID-19 response] better. And we’ve seen how Liberia and Sierra Leone, for example, have been able to put in place measures to confront the epidemic that have been quite impressive. That painful learning really enabled them to start off at a different level [than other countries] with a different outlook on how to invest [in health systems].”
Still, she said, the severity of the situation cannot be overlooked, because, as the study suggests, this pandemic could devastate Africa – and may continue to do so long after other parts of the world have put this chapter behind them.
not surprising , similar dirty tricks had been used repeatedly countless times.Here's what the "experts" said at the beginning of the outbreak.
The coronavirus could devastate Africa
The continent’s governments are not well-prepared to fight a pandemic.
Perspective by Phillip Carter III
Phillip Carter III is president of the Mead Hill Group and a senior fellow at the Population Institute. A career Foreign Service officer, he previously served as ambassador to Guinea and Côte d’Ivoire, and as deputy to the commander for civil military engagement at the U.S. Africa Command.
March 18, 2020 at 6:00 a.m. EDT
the wicked amdk veri good at spreading fear and using intimidation to achieve its evil goal.
the evil amdk always present fake facade of high moral standing and a pretence of upholding justice.
since 1950 , it had been saying russia is bad , wanting to take over europe. and started the cold war.
even when russia allowed the berlin wall to be dismantled and later USSR itself broke into pieces , the evil amdk still lied that russia is a threat to europe.
The only ones still caring are the vaccine merchants and dictators who got addicted to the 'temporary emergency powers' they obtained to 'fight the virus'.
u guys remember the year 2000 supposed computer bug? companies spent billions for nothing. same as this 'pandemic' wtf
Those Y2K stickers must be worth a lot now.
At the end of the day, it's all about selling a peace of mind to the feeble-minded. Doesn't matter if you're selling insurance, health products or tuition.
Exploit their fear and/or vanity, and you will sell successfully.
Africans are different. They have the highest genetic diversity
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