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 astounding. On the other hand, we were assured those jurisdictions that do lock down will see only a fraction of the death toll.
Then, once vaccines became available, the narrative was modified to “get shots in arms and then covid will stop spreading. Those countries without vaccines, on the other hand, will continue to face mass casualties.
The lockdown narrative, of course, has already been thoroughly overturned. Jurisdictions that did not lock down—or adopted only weak and short lockdowns—ended up with covid death tolls that were either similar to—or even better than—death tolls in countries that adopted draconian lockdowns. Lockdown advocates said locked down countries would be overwhelmingly better off. These people were clearly wrong.
Undaunted by the increasing implausibility of the lockdown narrative, the global health bureaucrats are nonetheless doubling down on forced vaccines—as we now see in Austria—and we continue to be assured that only countries with high vaccination rates can hope to avoid disastrous covid outcomes.
Yet, the experience in Sub-Saharan Africa calls both these narratives into question, and Africa’s numbers have been far, far lower than the experts warned would be the case.
For example, the AP reported this week that in spite of low vaccination rates, Africa has fared better than most of the world:
[T]here is something “mysterious” going on in Africa that is puzzling scientists, said Wafaa El-Sadr, chair of global health at Columbia University. “Africa doesn’t 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,” she said …
Fewer than 6% of people in Africa are vaccinated. For months, the WHO has described Africa as “one of the least affected regions in the world” in its weekly pandemic reports.
Yet, disaster for Africa has long been predicted for several reasons even beyond the availability of vaccines. For instance, it is known that lockdowns are especially impractical in the poorest parts of the world. This is because populations in places with undeveloped economies can’t simply sit at home and 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.
Wamai, et al also note that at this point “It is likely that SARS-CoV-2 has already been widely disseminated through Africa. … If so, widespread infection is likely to also result in widespread natural immunity.”
In other words, continued claims by health officials—both in Africa and elsewhere—that mass death is right around the corner with the “next wave” looks increasingly implausible.
No comments:
Post a Comment