Economic fears as Africa escalates coronavirus response
DAKAR, Senegal — African nations have ordered curfews and lockdowns in response to the growing coronavirus epidemic, raising fears of turmoil for low-income workers and cash-strapped governments across the continent.
Cases have risen across the world's poorest continent over the past week to a total of 2,137 and 62 deaths, according to an AFP tally, prompting countries to enact strict counter measures.
South Africa, the continent's most developed economy — which at 554 cases has Africa's largest outbreak — on Monday announced a nationwide lockdown.
"Without decisive action, the number of people infected will rapidly increase... to hundreds of thousands," South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said at the time.
There are fears that weak health infrastructure in Africa will leave the continent particularly exposed to an outbreak on the scale of virus-stricken Europe.
Other countries are following suit with similar measures. More are expected to be announced in the coming days.
On Monday, Senegal and Ivory Coast both declared states of emergency and ordered night-time curfews.
Ivory Coast on Tuesday said it had recorded 73 coronavirus cases in total and would lock areas down progressively, depending on how the virus spreads.
Senegal has recorded 86 coronavirus cases to date, its health ministry said on Tuesday. Ivory Coast has 25 known coronavirus cases.
Ivory Coast PM in self-isolation
In a sign of coronavirus' increasing reach, Ivory Coast's Prime Minister Amadou Gon Coulibaly said on Twitter on Tuesday that he was in a self-isolation after coming into contact with a positive case.
As the virus spreads, there are also fears that poor and debt-saddled countries will unable to provide an adequate response.
Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed on Tuesday asked G20 leaders for $150 billion in emergency funding to deal with coronavirus, saying that it "poses an existential threat" to the economies of African countries.
He added that creditors should partly write off national debt for low-income countries.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told France's parliament on Tuesday that there would be a European financial aid package for poor countries fighting the virus.
"I'm thinking in particular about Africa," he said.
'How do we pay the rent?'
Adopting lockdowns and social distancing measures in poor African nations is also generating economic worries at the local level.
Homes are often overcrowded, and workers in the informal economy cannot self-isolate at home without abandoning their livelihoods.
Matshidiso Moeti, the World Health Organisation's regional director for Africa, admitted these difficulties in a briefing with reporters last week.
She said such measures were "quite a challenge" and that the WHO is working on other approaches such as making hand sanitisers more widely available.
Locals are increasingly concerned as containment measures bite.
"They're closing down the stalls, the restaurants, but how are we supposed to feed our families?" asked Nemy Fery, who runs a street-food stall in Abidjan, Ivory Coast's main city.
He added that he would try selling takeaway meals -- and look for another job.
There are similar concerns in Muslim-majority Senegal, where the authorities were already struggling last week to enforce a ban on praying in mosques.
Sabah Amar, who works in a souvenir shop, said that Senegalese people "will die of hunger" before they succumb to coronavirus.
Several people interviewed by AFP in Dakar nonetheless said they supported the government's coronavirus measures.
"I prefer that everything closes. We're not selling anything anyway," said Amar. "Otherwise we're all going to die."
In the north of the continent, Egyptian Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouli on Tuesday announced a two-week night-time curfew.
And in the east, cases have doubled in Rwanda, to 36, while South Sudan has closed its air and land borders, except for food and fuel supplies.
Rising cases
The archipelago nation of Cape Verde on Tuesday announced its first coronavirus fatality after a 62-year-old British tourist died.
Cameroon also recorded its first death — a man who had contracted the disease in Italy and tested positive on March 14, according to Health Minister Manachi Manaouda.
Four people have died in Burkina Faso, which is West Africa's worst-hit country with 115 confirmed cases.
Countries that have announced strict containment measures are turning to the army to enforce them.
Military patrols in Senegal will ensure people respecting the dusk-to-dawn curfew, for example.
South Africa's president has also said the army will enforce his country's lockdown.
Nombulelo Tyokolo, 41, a domestic worker in Cape Town, who shares a one-bedroom shack with her son, told AFP she was worried about how the lockdown will work.
"I am scared, worried and panicking about 21 days indoors," she said.
"We have to fetch water outside and go outside to the toilets. God have mercy." — with AFP Africa bureaux
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New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Hipkins says on Sunday that he had contracted COVID-19, testing positive at a key point in his flailing campaign for re-election.
Hipkins saYS on his official social media feed that he would need to isolate for up to five days -- less than two weeks before his country's general election.
The leader of the centre-left Labour Party said he started to experience cold symptoms on Saturday and had cancelled most of his weekend engagements. — AFP
The World Health Organization and US health authorities say Friday they are closely monitoring a new variant of COVID-19, although the potential impact of BA.2.86 is currently unknown.
The WHO classified the new variant as one under surveillance "due to the large number (more than 30) of spike gene mutations it carries", it wrote in a bulletin about the pandemic late Thursday.
So far, the variant has only been detected in Israel, Denmark and the United States. — AFP
The World Health Organization says on Friday that the number of new COVID-19 cases reported worldwide rose by 80% in the last month, days after designating a new "variant of interest".
The WHO declared in May that Covid is no longer a global health emergency, but has warned that the virus will continue to circulate and mutate, causing occasional spikes in infections, hospitalisations and deaths.
In its weekly update, the UN agency said that nations reported nearly 1.5 million new cases from July 10 to August 6, an 80% increase compared to the previous 28 days. — AFP
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In a declassified report, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) says they had no information backing recent claims that three scientists at the lab were some of the very first infected with COVID-19 and may have created the virus themselves.
Drawing on intelligence collected by various member agencies of the US intelligence community (IC), the ODNI report says some scientists at the Wuhan lab had done genetic engineering of coronaviruses similar to COVID-19. — AFP
Boris Johnson deliberately misled MPs over Covid lockdown-breaking parties in Downing Street when he was prime minister, a UK parliament committee ruled on Thursday.
The cross-party Privileges Committee said Johnson, 58, would have been suspended as an MP for 90 days for "repeated contempts (of parliament) and for seeking to undermine the parliamentary process".
But he avoided any formal sanction by his peers in the House of Commons by resigning as an MP last week.
In his resignation statement last Friday, Johnson pre-empted publication of the committee's conclusions, claiming a political stitch-up, even though the body has a majority from his own party.
He was unrepentant again on Thursday, accusing the committee of being "anti-democratic... to bring about what is intended to be the final knife-thrust in a protracted political assassination".
Calling it "beneath contempt", he said it was "for the people of this to decide who sits in parliament, not Harriet Harman", the veteran opposition Labour MP who chaired the seven-person committee. — AFP
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