![\"market\"](\"https:\/\/cdn.mises.org\/styles\/slideshow\/s3\/static-page\/img\/market1.jpg?itok=JgeckzTF\")
<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n11\/23\/2021Ryan McMaken<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Since the very beginning of the covid panic, the narrative has been this: implement severe lockdowns or your population will experience a bloodbath. Morgues will be overwhelmed, the death total toll will be astounding. On the other hand, we were assured those jurisdictions that\u00a0do<\/em>\u00a0lock down would see only a fraction of the death toll.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then, once vaccines became available, the narrative was modified to \u201cGet shots in arms and then covid will stop spreading. Those countries without vaccines, on the other hand, will continue to face mass casualties.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The lockdown narrative, of course, has already been thoroughly overturned. Jurisdictions that did not lock down or\u00a0adopted only weak and short lockdowns\u00a0ended up with<\/a>\u00a0covid death tolls that were either similar to\u2014or even better than\u2014death tolls in countries that adopted draconian lockdowns. Lockdown advocates said locked-down countries would be overwhelmingly better off. These people were clearly wrong.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Undaunted by the increasing implausibility of the lockdown narrative, the global health bureaucrats are nonetheless doubling down on forced vaccines\u2014as we now see in Austria\u2014and we continue to be assured that only countries with high vaccination rates can hope to avoid disastrous covid outcomes.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yet, the experience\u00a0in sub-Saharan Africa calls both these narratives into question: Africa\u2019s\u00a0numbers have been far, far lower than the experts warned would be the case.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For example,\u00a0the AP reported this week\u00a0<\/a>that in spite of low vaccination rates, Africa has fared better than most of the\u00a0world:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
[T]here is something \u201cmysterious\u201d going on in Africa that is puzzling scientists, said Wafaa El-Sadr, chair of global health at Columbia University. \u201cAfrica doesn\u2019t have the vaccines and the resources to fight COVID-19 that they have in Europe and the U.S., but somehow they seem to be doing better,\u201d she said\u2026.<\/p>
Fewer than 6% of people in Africa are vaccinated. For months, the WHO has described Africa as \u201cone of the least affected regions in the world\u201d in its weekly pandemic reports.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
Yet\u00a0disaster for Africa has long been\u00a0predicted for several reasons even beyond the availability of vaccines. For instance, it is\u00a0known that lockdowns are especially impractical in the poorest parts of the world. This is because populations in places with undeveloped economies can\u2019t simply sit at home\u00a0and live off savings or debt. Rather, these people must go out into the world and earn a living on a day-to-day basis. Starvation is the alternative. Moreover, much of this work is done in the informal economy, so enforcing lockdowns becomes especially difficult.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
![\"afr\"](\"https:\/\/cdn.mises.org\/styles\/max_1160\/s3\/africa1.png?itok=uVpskAvq\" "\\"\\"\/")
<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\nSource: Our World in Data (Confirmed Deaths per Million, November 19, 2021<\/a>;\u00a0\u00a0Share of People Vaccinated against Covid-19, November 19, 2021<\/a>).<\/h6>\n\n\n\n
It was also assumed covid would be especially deadly in Africa due\u00a0to the fact many large households live in small housing units.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But that \u201cconventional wisdom\u201d\u00a0flies in the face of the reality of covid in Africa, which is that there have been\u00a0fewer\u00a0<\/em>deaths.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The \u201cexperts\u201d\u00a0have groped around,\u00a0looking for possible explanations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some sources, for example, insist that the low death totals are only an artifact of incomplete reporting on covid infections and that \u201ca lack of good qualitative data was the issue<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But\u00a0Richard Wamai at Northeastern University rejects the claim it\u2019s all about case reporting, and says that \u201clocal systems for reporting deaths in Africa make it difficult to hide COVID-19 casualties<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0In\u00a0a paper<\/a>\u00a0for the\u00a0International Journal of\u00a0Environmental Research and Public Health<\/em>, Wamai and his coauthors conclude, \u201c[T]here is no evidence that COVID-19 mortality data is less accurately reported in Africa than elsewhere\u201d\u00a0and \u201cWhile the true picture of infections and mortality in the continent has yet to fully emerge, the quality of data for other diseases, such as HIV\/AIDS, indicates that Africa has the capacity to collect and report valid disease surveillance data.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In any case,\u00a0the\u00a0World Health Organization\u00a0reports<\/a>\u00a0that covid deaths in Africa make up only 2.9 percent of covid deaths, while Africa\u2019s population is 16 percent of the global total. Africa\u2019s covid total could double or triple, and Africa would still be faring far better than Europe and the Americas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Wamai\u00a0et al. also note that at this point \u201c[i]t is likely that SARS-CoV-2 has already been widely disseminated through Africa\u2026. If so, widespread infection is likely to also result in widespread natural immunity.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In other words, continued claims by health officials\u2014both in Africa and elsewhere\u2014that mass death is right around the corner with the \u201cnext wave\u201d look\u00a0increasingly implausible.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It looks increasingly likely that the lack of covid mortality in\u00a0Africa is not due to a data issue nor a situation in which covid has been \u201ccontained\u201d up until now. So\u00a0then\u00a0why is Africa doing so much better than the wealthy West?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Naturally, the advocates of forced lockdowns and coerced vaccines would prefer to ignore this issue altogether, but the undeniable reality of Africa\u2019s experience has forced mainstream researchers to publicly admit the many ways\u00a0that many factors can explain covid\u2019s\u00a0prevalence beyond vaccination rates and mask mandates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For instance, mentioning that obesity is an important factor in covid mortality has in the past been likely to get one savaged in the media for \u201cfat shaming.\u201d\u00a0Yet the Africa situation has forced the well informed to admit that yes, obese populations clearly suffer more from covid.\u00a0In Africa, not surprisingly, we find that obesity rates are far below those found in North America and Europe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Other possible explanations forwarded as reasons for Africa\u2019s situation include\u00a0past exposure to other coronaviruses<\/a>, youthful populations, fewer patients lacking\u00a0zinc and vitamin D<\/a>,\u00a0past\u00a0use of the Bacillus Calmette-Gu\u00e9rin vaccination, climate, genetic background, and parasite load<\/a>.\u00a0In addressing the African \u201cenigma\u201d\u00a0one group of researchers in the journal\u00a0Colombia medica<\/em>\u00a0dared even suggest it\u2019s possible<\/a>\u2014although not conclusively shown at this point\u2014that \u201ca mass public health preventive campaign against COVID-19 may have taken place, inadvertently, in some African countries with massive community ivermectin use.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
![\"africa\"](\"https:\/\/cdn.mises.org\/styles\/max_1160\/s3\/africa2_0.jpg?itok=WapLuZEl\" "\\"\\"\/")
<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\nSource: \u201cGlobal Obesity Levels<\/a>,\u201d ProCon.org, last modified March 27, 2020; Our World in Data (Share of People Vaccinated against Covid-19, November 19, 2021<\/a>).<\/h6>\n\n\n\n
In the West, however, the media drumbeat around covid has consistently been \u201cShut up, stay home, get jabbed,\u00a0and\u00a0stop doubting the experts on forced vaccines.\u201d Fortunately, however, the African situation has forced many researchers to ask inconvenient questions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In fact, it\u2019s amazing Africa has not been overcome by mass death considering that covid lockdowns and covid \u201cmitigation\u201d measures have contributed\u00a0to the impoverishment and mass starvation on the continent. Or\u00a0as Germany\u2019s\u00a0DW News<\/em>\u00a0puts it<\/a>, \u201cMeasures put in place to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus are pushing millions of people in Africa into severe hunger.\u201d And\u00a0as Wamai notes, \u201c[S]ome of the excess deaths in Africa \u201ccan be attributed not to the disease, but to lockdown measures that cut off access to medical care for other illnesses.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But\u00a0Africa hasn\u2019t gotten the bloodbath that was promised,\u00a0and as one Nigerian\u00a0put it<\/a>,\u00a0\u201cThey said there will be dead bodies on the streets and all that, but nothing like that happened.\u201dAuthor:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Contact Ryan McMaken<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ryan McMaken is a senior editor at the Mises Institute. Send him your article submissions for the\u00a0Mises Wire<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Power and Market<\/em>, but read\u00a0article guidelines<\/a>\u00a0first.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Masking, as I\u2019ve stated since before U.S. mask mandates began, is not effective at preventing viral transmission. There\u2019s massive ivermectin use. Hydroxychloroquine is conveniently available over the counter, vaccination rates are below 10%, lockdowns are non-existent, and Africa has by far the lowest death rates in the world. How could this be? With all the … Read moreAfrica, It’s the Least Covidiotic Continent<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"pmpro_default_level":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2048","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","pmpro-has-access"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/smashomash.com\/smashteam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2048","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/smashomash.com\/smashteam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/smashomash.com\/smashteam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smashomash.com\/smashteam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smashomash.com\/smashteam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2048"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/smashomash.com\/smashteam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2048\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/smashomash.com\/smashteam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smashomash.com\/smashteam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smashomash.com\/smashteam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}