HACKER Q&A
📣 maremmano

Coronavirus in Africa. Should we expect an outbreak?


Like many other people I constantly follow the evolution of the spread of the new Coronavirus in the world.

This is the map that I often consult: https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6

What I have noticed is the zero presence of the virus on the African continent. Can this be realistic? Considering the massive presence of Chinese citizens in Africa and the strong interests of China in Africa, is it possible that there are no known cases?

Or, as I think, the poor quality of monitoring in some African regions has not yet brought to light the cases that actually exist?

Should we expect an epidemic bomb from Africa? what do you think?

  👤 aaron695 Accepted Answer ✓
The concept it is not in Africa is not possible. It's 1.2 billion people, many single countries of much smaller size have multiples cases.

So they must be missing the cases.

Which means to me it will spread similar to the better prepared and richer China.

But it does depend when? The longer it takes to get hold the better prepared the world is.

I'd like laboratories and mathematical modelling companies to be predicting this under defined criteria and publicly putting their predictions into a repository. We need a way to reward correct models. Currently models that exaggerate get the media attention. The media won't state the obvious, "where are the African cases?" but will headline an academic who throws together a quick paper.

👤 tim333
Probably there'll be an outbreak given the trade with China. Indeed there are probably undetected cases there already. Hopefully the fact that its hot sunny and fairly open will reduce the spread a bit. I think it's like flu in that it'll spread better in winter conditions.
👤 asheikh
>>Should we expect an epidemic bomb from Africa? what do you think?

I know that lot of racist/black haters are praying for that could be the case. If ever happens that there is a coronavirus in Africa, that would be a manufactured "epidemic bomb" by the African haters