By Sana Sarr
There’s strength in numbers. It’s beneficial for people around the world to bring our resources together and collaborate to find solutions that affect us all. It’s great when developing nations can simply adopt solutions that have been proven effective elsewhere, but ultimately, Africa needs to be at the forefront of finding solutions to problems that are specific to us.
As the whole world struggles to deal with the sucker punch that is Covid-19, many nations, especially developing nations, look to the World Health Organization and the self-proclaimed Global Leaders, the USA, EU and China, for leadership and guidance on how to deal with the pandemic. However, there is enough evidence to show that nobody has quite figured this thing out yet. The world was unprepared for this outbreak and everyone is just fumbling around in the dark for answers. We’re still unsure whether those who make a full recovery from Covid-19 develop immunity to it, we went from from no lockdowns to statewide and nationwide mandatory lockdowns, from telling us masks can’t protect us to making masks mandatory when in public, and with the fact that nobody can tell us definitively when the lockdowns will be over or what returning to normalcy will even look like, it’s obvious that government officials and health experts still have more questions than answers when it comes to dealing with Covid-19. Studies are still being conducted and we continue to learn new developments as we go along.
Still, a few useful facts have been discovered and concluded on. One of these very useful conclusions is establishing how long the new Coronavirus can live on different surfaces.
According to The New England Journal of Medicine, the novel Coronavirus can live on different surfaces as follows
Paper and tissue paper – 3 hours
Copper – 4 hours
Cardboard – 24 hours
Wood – 2 days
Cloth – 2 days
Stainless steel – 2-3 days
Polypropylene plastic – 3 days
Glass – 4 days
Paper money – 4 days
For months, this information got us obsessively wiping down everything, including vegetables, to try and stop the spread of the virus. But suddenly we’re being told that people don’t contract it by touching surfaces. More evidence that the experts are still trying to figure it out. You wanna know what’s missing from the above list? How long does the virus last when exposed to direct sunlight – the kind we find everyday in most parts of Africa! According to this report by the New York Times, a study done by ecological modelers at the University of Connecticut “suggests that ultraviolet rays could slow the virus, though not enough to wipe it out, and not as a treatment.”
We also heard experts suggest that the numbers for infections and deaths will likely go down in the US as we enter the Summer, and probably rise again in a second wave over the Fall and winter months. The theory makes sense because that’s the pattern the common flu, caused by a sister-virus to the novel Coronavirus, is more virile during the colder months. With this in mind, I’m wondering why more attention is not paid to the possible negating impact of climate / weather on the novel Coronavirus? It’s quite obvious that this may not be a priority area for the West simply because relying on the summer months would only provide temporary respite before the long winter months kick in again. But for Africa, with our year-round sunlight and heat, this could be a game changer if it’s proven that the sun and ultraviolet rays kill the virus quickly. At this point, let me clarify that i am 100% in support of the current guidelines of social distancing, hand washing and wearing face masks. This is a new infectious disease and we need to take all precautionary measures until we know more about how to prevent and cure it. With that said though, it would be foolish for me to not recognize or acknowledge that SOCIAL DISTANCING IS NOT A SUSTAINABLE SOLUTION FOR AFRICA (and other global south nations)!
Taking Gambia as an example, our culture is simply too intimate for us to be able to stay apart from each other. We have already seen how it has been impossible for our people to observe social distancing despite the State of Emergency declared by the President and despite the endless sensitization for social distancing by various groups. More importantly though, our socio-economic realities make it practically impossible for us to “stay at home”. Many live from hand to mouth, waking up every morning to go find the means to put a meal on the table. We don’t have the earning potential to shop for a week, and even those with that earning power don’t have the freezers/storage facilities to save food to sustain them for an entire week allowing them to stay indoors…oh, and those with the freezers are at the mercy of the highly unreliable NAWEC with their hours-long blackouts!
I must recognize the heartwarming display of compassion shown by many who donated food items to help the economically disadvantaged over the past few months, but we all know that it will only take so long before donor fatigue sets in and the handouts to stop flowing. People cannot live their lives sitting indoors and waiting for charity to feed their families.
I will also commend the Ministry of Basic and Secondary Education their efforts to improvise to continue school through televised lessons, but we all know that this is far from satisfactory. The lessons were an emergency measure developed hastily as a short-term gap filler. Its effectiveness has not been tested and we know that a great majority of our children do not have access to televisions or electricity to even watch the little that’s out there. I am not aware of any mechanism for the education department to get feedback from the children or their parents, or even for the teachers to communicate with their students to know who is receiving the material or how those who need assistance can get it.
On the business side of things, social distancing means many small businesses will effectively be killed. Our government has no program, plan or even thoughts to help this very important sector of our economy survive or recover post Covid-19. There’s no stimulus payment, no unemployment for workers, and no economic recovery package for businesses.
These realities paint a very bleak picture. Consequently, as with many other challenges we face, Africa needs to closely examine the problem and devise practical solutions that work for us and our unique situation. We cannot continue to swallow hook, line and sinker, any “template” prescriptions/solutions that never had us in mind when they were being designed. We respect and appreciate the World Health Organization (WHO), but in case anyone had doubts, the recent threats to pull funding for the organization by a Western president who failed to give the pandemic due attention and is looking for someone to scapegoat is clear indication of where the power lies and whose interests the WHO is expected to prioritize.
Good News RE: Covid-19?
Please allow me some latitude to make some unscientific assumptions from what i have observed since the pandemic began. Seeing how quickly the Coronavirus ravaged Wuhan, Italy and New York, I believe we can agree that it has not (yet) moved as quickly through The Gambia and other African countries. I acknowledge that there’s not as much testing being conducted, but i honestly don’t think a lack of testing alone explains the significantly lower numbers of positive tests and deaths we’ve seen so far. Perhaps it’s wishful thinking, but i strongly believe that with our poor adherence to social distancing guidelines, porous geographical borders and largely ill-equipped healthcare facilities and systems, there must be another “invisible hand” at play to account for apparent resilience. Is it the sunlight? Is it the heat? What about other hot climate areas like Brazil? Is it something genetic in our immune systems causing us to be asymptomatic even when infected? I have no idea. However, African governments and scientists need to come together to conduct our own studies of the novel Coronavirus in our environment since the first cases were discovered. We need to look into how it affects people in our part of the world and with that, we need to develop guidelines that are effective, practical and sustainable for our people, societies and economic realities. Until then, let’s wash our hands and do our best with social distancing.
