Africa vs Coronavirus

I was scratching my head wondering how the two cases reported in Egypt and Algeria resulted in no subsequent spread and full recoveries yet in Europe and America it was spreading like wild fire. I thought, is it just the climate? No, such viruses still manage to spread here, and it’s currently flu season here. So what could it be? Then I realized, hygiene!

The Coronavirus spread pattern seemed to show personal hygiene levels or lack there of in a global pattern.

The multiple viral threads about how people from those regions don’t bathe daily nor thoroughly clean all their body parts daily was baffling to many Africans who bathe one to three times a day at times and scrub every orifice.

The washing of hands prior to meals in the West seemed more like a burdensome chore than a standard routine often not done by most especially when dining out. In Ghana I am yet to encounter a restaurant that doesn’t bring you a basin to wash your hands prior to a meal or have sinks you are directed to prior to a meal. Perhaps because people eat with their hands in Africa, maybe that’s why hands are washed often and these services more readily provided and customary?

What about face masks?

As someone who’s been in and out of medical facilities often, I was always conscious of the fact that you were to wear a face mask if you were sick so as to lower the spread of your germs to others via coughing or sneezing. For some reason healthy people have decided that they must wear the mask to protect themselves. Giving themselves this false sense of protection. Even those who wear the proper fitted masks with filters who know how to properly secure them still aren’t fully protected as they barely wash their hands! They use those contaminated dirty hands to remove the masks!

Another practise I see Africans do is changing when they get home. You have outside clothes and home clothes. After work or school you take off those clothes and wear something more comfortable around the house minimizing the spread of the outside germs and maintaining a level of cleanliness.

Let’s not forget that shoes from outside are left at the door or carried in as well.

Also clothes can’t be worn multiple times in a row as reported several westerners do. The dirt and sweat accumulation does not allow it in most African regions.

Although the media portrays Africa as dirty poor and polluted, which is not to say it doesn’t have its shortfalls as with all parts of the world, majority of the various African cultures have multiple practices focused on hygiene which minimizes the contraction and spread of such diseases that are naturally spreading in the catastrophic manner we see in the West.

What do you think is the cause of the spread? Do you think hygiene plays a major role? Why do you think Africa is seemingly unscathed? Are the reports of the virus not “malleable” to the african DNA true? Is it purely the weather? I want to hear your speculations.