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SvennoJ on 19 May 2020
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RolStoppable said:
SvennoJ said:

WHY ARE SOME AREAS HARDER HIT?

Uzonna said researchers are still unable to explain why some populations have been harder hit by the pandemic than others. He said many experts predicted that Africa would be devastated by the virus due to inadequate infrastructure and healthcare, but that hasn’t happened yet. “Nobody has seen anything like that. So why is that? Why is Africa so far doing relatively OK compared to other countries?” he asked.

Uzonna said African nations aren’t taking more precautions than other countries so he wondered if there are other contributing factors. “I don’t think it’s related to genetics because if you look in the U.S., the majority of the people who die are African Americans. I don’t think the African American have changed so significantly over time so there must be something that we don’t know yet,” he said.

Tourism, especially areas where people party hard. For example, it's absolutely no coincidence that both Italy's and Austria's ski resorts were the biggest hotspots with all their aprés ski parties. Now which places in Africa are known as party capitals? I can't think of any.

So one crucial factor are mass gatherings in very condensed spaces. But tourism goes two ways, so people eventually return to their home countries. Now which African countries are wealthy enough that its people are known for traveling all around the globe? Again, I can't think of any.

That's why Africa isn't having big problems despite their atrocious health infrastructure. The primary causes for the rapid spread simply do not exist for them in the same way as for wealthy countries.

Yep, shutting down the airlines was the best thing to do. It's also population density and general mobility. The North here is also still exempt from any cases (The one they thought there was was a false positive) Definitely not due to warm weather!

However it's still spreading, just at a lot slower rate without parties and tourism. The daily growth rate in Africa is only 1.023x, a doubling time of about a month. India currently has a doubling time of about 13 days, while Italy had a doubling time of 4.5 days right around lock downs started.

The question is probably a bit inaccurate, it's why some areas are hit faster than others. Anyway it's directly tied to why social distancing is so effective.

This summer will be tricky. People will be itching to get out again, numbers are down, party hard...