In Late November of this year, word came from South Africa that there was yet another variant of the dreaded COVID-19 disease. This new strain, known as omicron, follows several other variants of the base disease, including alpha, beta, delta, mu and lambda. They differ in transmissibility and impact on people’s health. The delta variant is still the most transmissible.
But a sudden increase in COVID cases in South Africa recently led scientists to closely examine data. From just over 200 new confirmed cases per day in recent weeks, South Africa saw the number of new daily cases rise rapidly to more than 1,200 a day and then to 2,465 a day later. Struggling to explain the sudden rise in cases, scientists studied virus samples from the outbreak and discovered the new variant.
According to a November 26 report by Associated Press, South African Health Minister Joe Phaahla said the variant was linked to the “exponential rise” of cases in the last few days of November, although experts are still trying to determine if the new variant, initially named B.1.1.529 was actually responsible.
Sharon Peacock, who has led genetic sequencing of COVID in Great Britain at the University of Cambridge, told the Associated Press that the data so far suggest the new variant has mutations “consistent with enhanced transmissibility,” but said that “the significance of many of the mutations is still not known.” However, Peacock also said there was no indication that the variant causes more deaths than other variants. Obviously, it’s much too soon to know.
It has been reported that COVID deaths across Africa have risen since mid-July 2021. Still, the recorded impact of the pandemic in sub-Saharan Africa is still significantly lower than in the Americas, Europe, and Asia. Nevertheless, within days of learning of this new variant – before much was known about transmissibility and deadliness, developed countries cut off travel from some African countries. Even Dr. Anthony Fauci, who has been quick to call for shutdowns, masks and stay-at-home recommendations, has said it’s too early to tell how infectious or deadly the omicron variant will be.
The United States government banned travel by non-citizens from South Africa, Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia and Zimbabwe if they’ve been in any of those countries in the past 14 days.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa quickly condemned what he repeatedly called “unjustified” travel bans on citizens of his country and its neighbors by much of the West and the Middle East in response to the discovery of the coronavirus variant. He called on those nations instituting the travel bans to undo the policies before they further damage African economies already suffering from self-imposed economic lockdowns during the two-year-old pandemic. Malawi President Lazarus Chakwera, in a Facebook post, said that “Covid measures must be based on science, not Afrophobia.” He added that people around the world owe South Africa’s scientists “our thanks for identifying it before anyone else did.”
That does beg the question of why many of the same people who criticized the previous administration for quickly banning flights from China and then Europe when there was clear evidence of contagion would support such a rapid travel ban on African nations when there was little evidence of the extent of the danger from the new variant and insufficient proof that people from those countries were spreading this new variant.
The State Department currently has issued a Level 2 travel warning for Americans traveling to India, meaning travelers should exercise extreme caution. However, this is mostly due to crime and terrorism. The India travel advisory cites a “low level of COVID-19 in the country.” The delta variant of COVID was first detected in India in late 2020 and had spread to more than 163 countries by 24 August 2021. The World Health Organization indicated in June 2021 that the delta variant has become the dominant strain globally. Yet no travel ban has ever been instituted on travelers from India.
There are alternating views of how bad COVID has hit the countries on the continent. The sometimes-rosy picture of the impact of COVID on Africa is based on very scant reporting. For quite some time, measurements of economic and other data from Africa has been limited by the shoddy data collection by African governments and reluctance to share what would be considered bad news. The desire to protect one’s image actually doesn’t work, though, because people would suspect something might be amiss if you can’t give accurate figures, especially when it comes to health.
There certainly are reasons why Africa might have escaped the worst of the pandemic. For example, we now know that most deaths occur in those aged 65 or older. The median age in North and South America, Europe, and Asia ranges from 32 to 42.5 years. The age demographic structure of sub-Saharan Africa is much younger – the median age on the continent is 18.
COVID has substantially affected those living in long-term care facilities. During the first wave of the pandemic, an estimated 40% of deaths in the United States were among elderly living in nursing homes, many sent back from hospitals on state government orders. In Canada, 81% of deaths occurred in those facilities. Meanwhile, most elderly people in sub-Saharan Africa don’t live in nursing homes, where they would be exposed to significant risks from infectious diseases. In sub-Saharan Africa, provision of care is mostly left to families.
It has been suggested that prior exposure to circulating coronaviruses, as has been the case throughout Africa for quite some time, could reduce the severity of the disease if people have developed antibodies. In this country, there are debates about the efficacy of natural immunity among those who had contracted COVID and survived it, but a previous study demonstrated that prior exposure to endemic coronaviruses resulted in lower chance of death and lower disease severity compared to those who were not previously exposed. So, Africa’s vulnerability to disease may ironically work in its favor.
Perhaps recalling the sudden devastation of Ebola in West Africa and the lingering damage to the economies of not only the three target countries – Liberia, Gabon and Sierra Leone – but other African countries as well, governments took quick and drastic action to limit the spread of the disease. As many as 40 countries closed their borders and enacted internal and external travel bans. Draconian restrictions may have prevented a wide dissemination of the virus, but it also crushed commerce and especially disrupted the lives of the poor, who often shop and operate day-to-day. Not being able to travel made their daily lives untenable, and not being able to attend to religious and other traditions was unacceptable to many people throughout the continent.
Consequently, there may indeed be benefit from the measures taken to prevent the spread of COVID in Africa and some favorable circumstances that have contributed to Africa supposedly escaping the worst of this devastating global pandemic. But we may not know the whole truth of this for quite some time. Evidence is scant and cover-ups are rampant.
The best thing the international community can do is live up to commitments to provide help to African nations in their fight against COVID, and the next time an African nation provides a scientific breakthrough that is of help to the rest of the world, perhaps don’t then ban travel from that country and further devastate its economy, especially without solid science to back up that decision.