{"id":106551,"date":"2020-12-18T14:45:36","date_gmt":"2020-12-18T06:45:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.namnewsnetwork.org\/?p=106551"},"modified":"2020-12-18T14:45:38","modified_gmt":"2020-12-18T06:45:38","slug":"covid-19-africa-confronts-a-second-wave-as-new-cases-emerges-in-east-north-and-south-regions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/?p=106551","title":{"rendered":"Covid-19: Africa confronts a second wave as new cases emerges in east, north and south regions"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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PRETORIA, Dec 18 (NNN-AGENCIES) — After being relatively spared by
coronavirus, Africa is bracing for the pandemic\u2019s second wave, noting how the microbe has once more cut a swathe through rich countries in Europe and North Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The continent\u2019s most-hit nations are again having to contemplate stringent
public health measures as they await the arrival of the vaccine cavalry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In South Africa, the start of summer has triggered traffic jams on roads
leading to coastal resorts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But this year, there will be no long, lazy days spent on the beach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In popular tourist destinations, the coronavirus is spreading at alarming
speed. Authorities have ordered partial closures, limits on the size of
gatherings and an extended curfew.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the African country worst hit in the pandemic, with almost 900,000
documented cases, South Africa is tightening up health restrictions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But around Africa, a continent of more than 1.2 billion people, there are
stark contrasts in the prevalence of the disease.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

New cases are emerging in East Africa, in northern and southern Africa, but
the trend in West Africa is a decline, according to the Africa Centres for
Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), an arm of the African Union.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Uganda, every region has been affected by the pandemic. Neighbouring
Rwanda, a far smaller but densely populated country, registered almost as
many new cases in December (722) as since the beginning of infection (797).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bars and nightclubs have been shut since March. Heavily fined for breaking
regulations, the owner of a Kigali bar said he had lost everything.
\u201cClients were drinking, but the police forced us to close.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Kenya, a second wave of the virus struck in September and led to the
closure of schools and the prolongation of a curfew. Some health
professionals say they are already waiting for a third wave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For several weeks, Africa CDC and the World Health Organization (WHO) have been pressing African governments to up their game for an inevitable second wave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nevertheless, the epidemic first reported in Africa nine months ago has not
been as destructive as experts feared, across a poor continent severely
lacking in health care structures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Africa has reported 2.4 million cases, just 3.6 percent of the world\u2019s
total.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The whole continent has registered more than 57,000 deaths, fewer for
instance than the total for France alone (59,072).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the low level of screening might call into question the reliability
of the statistics, no African country has observed a peak in excess
mortality, which would be a sign of the virus spreading under the radar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Experts are still trying to understand why Africa, so far, has not been
affected to the same extent as other continents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Explanations include Africa\u2019s youthful population, cross-immunity derived
from previous epidemics and a still predominantly rural economy, which means less density of population.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Early and draconian measures imposed on citizens in most African countries clearly put the brakes on the spread of the disease.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the social and economic consequences of lockdown policies have been
disastrous for the weakest economies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In nations where the stigma of Covid-19 has become less visible, daily life
has rushed to resume its course, largely at the expense of social distancing
and other barrier gestures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In central Africa, Cameroon is preparing to host the 2020 African Nations
Championship football tournament in January, postponed from last April
because of the virus. Officials are counting on a partial reopening of
stadiums.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Authorities in Senegal face calls for public protests against restrictions,
while in Equatorial Guinea, nightclubs are the only places that remain
closed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGenerally speaking, the virus is continuing to progress in Africa,\u201d warned
Isabelle Defourny, operations director at Medecins sans frontieres (Doctors
Without Borders, MSF).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MSF has noted a resurgence of Covid-19 both in capital cities and in rural
areas, notably in Chad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re also seeing an increase in severe cases where oxygen is needed,
particularly in Bamako (Mali), which was not the case during the first wave,\u201d Defourny said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The battle Africa must wage for access to vaccines is far from won. The
likely cost will be a around 4.7 billion euros ($5.76 billion), but only a
quarter of the nations on the continent can muster the required resources,
according to the WHO. — NNN-AGENCIES<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

PRETORIA, Dec 18 (NNN-AGENCIES) — After being relatively spared bycoronavirus, Africa is bracing for the pandemic\u2019s second wave, noting how the microbe has once more cut a swathe through rich countries in Europe and North Africa. The continent\u2019s most-hit nations are again having to contemplate stringentpublic health measures as they await the arrival of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":106552,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[213],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106551"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=106551"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106551\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/106552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=106551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=106551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=106551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}