Americans need to take off the blinders that they will get the vaccine, first. This notion is dangerous and woven inextricably into the November election. “It’s risky [to Americans]… and not ethically right,” WHO’s chief scientist told a Nigerian newspaper, yesterday.
Pediatrician Paul Offit who wrote the book about the kids who got polio from a bad initial vaccine warned Americans in Science Magazine that Trump’s “October Surprise” could be the announcement of a vaccine that won’t work.
In a wildfire if you have the capability you dump the water on the largest blazes. When we get a vaccine will we direct the first doses to the worst outbreaks?
It’s daunting trying to predict where the worst outbreaks are now much less where they will be. Using Statista today the U.S., all of Europe and the U.K. are at the top of the list for deaths per capita, yet there is not a single African country, or Southeast Asian country in the top 50.
How can that be?
Strict government actions in Africa to protect the population against Covid-19 make America’s actions look like a slap-on-the-wrist. Who’s right?
Today America errs on the side of economics over optimal minimizing of the infection. It’s absolutely the reverse in Africa. Is this just a difference of perception? Or morality? Is it a realistic debate over long-term well-being? Or something much more insidious, such as the personal well-being of our leaders?
China and America are toeing up at the post-virus starting line at the continent of Africa, and it’s pitiful how out of shape Americans are. Mike Pompeo and the State Department rely on a tried and true Trump technique of dominance: lie until it’s believed. But Africans aren’t as dumb as Americans.
Imagine about a year from now when much of the world, even a few parts of Africa, start to really manage the virus. Imagine an airplane actually flying from London to Johannesburg. Imagine, too, that Americans are banned from these flights.
I just finished an hour reading the sarcasm, fear and disbelief – mostly from Africa – about Trump suggesting “injecting” disinfectant into the body to kill the virus.
These emotions rope off America from the rest of the world. Today’s African commentary was particularly worrisome that the medical advisors sitting beside him didn’t jump up and scream, “NO!!!”
America isn’t just the laughing stock, but the King Kong monster of the world.
America, wake up.
“There is no shortage of lab tests [for coronavirus] in Africa,” Rosanna Peeling, chair of diagnostics research at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine told South Africa’s Fin24 a few hours ago. Stated, yet still hard to believe.
But because of this perception together with the widely exposed negligence of America managing the virus, Americans have been banned from South Africa and Kenya as of last night.
Coronavirus is creeping into Africa but at a much slower rate than some expect given the high levels of transport exchange between Africa, China and even Italy.
South Africa reported a seventh case, prompting a school closure in a suburb of Johannesburg.
Twenty-two passengers who arrived Uganda yesterday from China, Korea and Italy were given the option of two weeks self-funded self-quarantine or to turn around and go back. They all went back.
The news about coronavirus is overwhelming, dominating all the major media and social media in sub-Saharan Africa. Several important points, especially for travelers planning to visit Africa, soon.
Africa so far presents a “puzzle” to health officials wondering why there isn’t a greater outbreak there, because travel exchange in Africa with China is among the highest in the world, and as a continent Africa has the least developed public health systems in the world. (Notable exception is the country of South Africa.)
Everyone is focused on the Covid19 pandemic, but what about the unprecedented continuing outbreak of Ebola in central Africa and Lassa in Nigeria, and why all this now?
The ebola outbreak began in August, 2018, and of 3,340 confirmed cases 2,249 have died, a two-thirds mortality rate. And it continues. In Nigeria the chronic Lassa virus has mushroomed with over 600 cases and 170 deaths annually since 2018.
What’s going on?
If you believe that there is too much immigration into the United States, then Friday’s announcement imposing additional immigration restraints on six countries including Nigeria and Tanzania looks reasonable.
But the reasons given by Homeland Security are not reasonable, they’re nonsense. The halfwits in the Trump administration are learning the ropes. They’re becoming just as politically agile as any of the reptile predecessors they promised to sweep away.
You’re probably reading this on Facebook. Well if so, buckle up. Time’s are a changin’.
I can tell from the stirrings on the African continent, grossed up by European sentiment first started in Ireland, that serious social media regulation is on the way.
So I wanted to write a blog this morning about all the African leaders who lied, making comparisons with Trump of course. Couldn’t come up with much, actually. Dictators generally don’t have to lie.
Does this mean that America is three times as bad as Kenya and has now devolved into a third world culture?
The Human Rights Watch’ “World Report 2020″ implies exactly that. “In 2019,” the report states, “the United States continued to move backwards” towards the cabal of wicked dictatorships and failed states. Have we really fallen that far?
Five days after Solemaini was killed the UN Security council convened a special meeting for the escalating terrorism in Africa’s Sahel.
Speaker after speaker noted how terrorists are winning military conflicts in the region and that basically, the UN had to beef up its military peace-keepers in the area.
Then came the U.S.’ turn to speak.
Empowered by their greater morality, three of Africa’s most important countries are giving America the finger.
Last year was different as small and developing countries in particular seemed to kowtow to Trump’s self-styled Mother Superior attitude towards them. But the killing of Solemaini seems to have broken that spell.