4 ms·
TB has proven to be a great practice run for COVID. Southern African countries have not messed about with it. I still remember just how strict things became eve
by zamalek 6y ago
TB has proven to be a great practice run for COVID. Southern African countries have not messed about with it. I still remember just how strict things became even with minor outbreaks. For something like a decade, Zimbabwe has required Foot and Mouth Disease control at borders - long after the risk has passed. I was temperature screened in an airport sometime in the early 2010s in South Africa for a domestic flight. My friends back there can't leave their home 95% of the time, they can't buy smokes, they can't buy beer. African countries are experts at this, and the comparison to America is depressing (including my own idiotic behavior).
- perl4ever 6y agoThe figures I see on the internet for testing in most African countries are not very high. It's become a talking point that more tests produce more cases; couldn't you argue the inverse - fewer tests produce fewer cases? It appears about 3200 tests per million are reported for all of Africa, compared to say Spain at ~110,000 or the US at around 96,000.
- zamalek 6y agoAbsolutely, maybe I'm wrong. My experience has just been that Africa deeply respects the power of a pathogen.
- perl4ever 6y agoAmong the top 20 countries with the most new cases at the moment, other than South Africa, Russia, and the US, they seem to all be developing countries outside Africa. So if African countries in general have had a good response, I wonder why it's spreading so rapidly in countries like India, Mexico, Chile, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Bangladesh, Peru, Colombia, Iran, etc...do they not respect the power of a pathogen?