07/04/2020
The threat of coronavirus in Africa flags a deeper crisis of global solidarity | World Economic Forum
19 pandemic would disproportionately impact the elderly and people with serious underlying
health issues.
As a young disabled man living with spinal muscular atrophy — a degenerative, motor-neuron
condition that makes the immune system more susceptible to acute respiratory infections — |
took heed of the call for vigilance and cut my trip short. With support from my US-based
medical team, | fled New York before the dramatic surge in state-wide cases and returned
home to Johannesburg on the eve that President Cyril Ramaphosa declared a national
disaster. At the time, South Africa had fewer than 100 confirmed cases.
That was just over two weeks ago.
As | write this on 31 March, 15 days into self-quarantine since my safe return home, our
confirmed cases stand at nearly 1,500. We are now five days into a nationwide lockdown for
21 days in a desperate bid to flatten the curve.
Flicking through the news channels, | just heard President Ramaphosa address the South
African National Defence Force in his capacity as Commander-in-Chief. Clad in full military
camouflage, his directive was clear: "You are called upon to defend the people of South Africa
against this virus."
For the first time since the dark days of apartheid, South Africans are bearing witness to the
marshaling of the armed forces to restrict freedom of movement as part of a dramatic
intervention to enforce social distancing on a mass scale. With winter fast approaching and
with the highest number of confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus in Africa, South Africa is
ground zero on a continent that has been all but forgotten in the global fight against the
COVID-19 pandemic.
Self-isolation in the townships
While | worry about the risk of exposure to myself as a young disabled man, | worry more
about the risk of exposure to a continent that is completely ill-equipped to deal with this
approaching tsunami. | shudder to think what would happen if South Africa — or the continent
at large — became the epicentre of the pandemic.
For public health officials around the world, density control is proving to be the most effective
tool in their arsenal to slow down the rate of transmission. But in townships across South
Africa where millions of people live in crammed, makeshift houses perched on top of burst
sewage pipes, telling people to stay at home and hunker down seems like a callous and
potentially counter-intuitive prescription from a public health standpoint. In these densely
populated communities, where there's no access to running water and where a single family
https:/Avww.weforum.org/agenda/2020/04/covid-19-south-africa-developing-countries/
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