Social distancing and the myth of Covid_19 in Africa-The panagora Blog

In Africa, social distancing is a privilege few can afford

The COVID-19 pandemic has already permeated all aspects of life.

While optimists hope it will force us to rethink inequality and global access to healthcare, the realists believe the net effect of the pandemic will be to further entrench the divides that already exist.

© [Reuters] Women walk in the streets of Abidjan, Ivory Coast following the outbreak of coronavirus (COVID-19) [Reuters]

In Africa, the crisis has not yet reached epic proportions. But the cracks caused by existing inequalities are already showing.

In South Africa - which declared a national state of disaster because of the pandemic last week - the working classes are navigating how to avoid contamination on cramped public transport on their way to meagre-paying jobs that often only help them live hand-to-mouth, while the more affluent classes empty large chain stores to stockpile as much food and toilet paper as they can.

Imaginary borders

In South Africa, the government only declared a disaster after more than 60 cases appeared. But Rwanda and Kenya declared decisive measures - including travel restrictions and bans on public gatherings - just after the first positive case was reported.

The option of closing borders to deal with the crisis, which some countries have already adopted, is undoubtedly a vexed one. South Africa, for example, has said it will build a 40km (25 miles) fence along its border with Zimbabwe. Although closing borders contributes positively to the social distancing recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO), the question is how practical such a measure will be for African countries.

National borders were arbitrarily drawn during the colonial era and, for many communities living along these boundaries, they exist only in theory. We see them on Google maps. But trade and family ties have been established since way before colonialism - and they endure. It may be possible to close an official border post, but so-called "irregular crossing points" - dotted across hundreds of kilometres and even over rivers and lakes - abound.

As we saw in the West Africa Ebola outbreak - where the first case was recorded in Guinea before spreading to Liberia and Sierra Leone - and the cholera outbreaks that began in Zimbabwe before spreading to South Africa, Botswana and Mozambique, diseases can easily spread across these essentially imaginary lines that nation-states carve out.

COVID-19 is not novel in this sense.

The myth of self-isolation

Knowing the realities on the ground, it is curious that the WHO and ministries of health in different African countries are recommending that people self-quarantine if they could have been exposed to the coronavirus. In Rwanda, for example, a man travelling from the US has potentially infected his wife and brother, accounting for three of the seven cases. Which raises the question: how are people in shared accommodation expected to self isolate?

Slums and informal settlements are also part of the physical infrastructures of many African cities. All of them were overcrowded and lacked services even before the threat of a global health crisis emerged.

Think of Alexandra in Johannesburg, where over 700,000 people are estimated to live in less than 5 square kilometres (1.9 square miles), Mbare in Harare with some 800,000 people, Kibera in Nairobi with at least 250,000, and Makoko in Lagos with over 300,000 whose homes are built on stilts in a lagoon.

Our big cities also pose a conundrum to people who must commute to work. Anyone who has been stuck in a traffic jam in a "matatu" (bus) in Nairobi or in a taxi in Johannesburg - often filled with 12 to 14 people - knows too well that the idea of social distancing on your way to work is a myth.

Not only are these overcrowded, but the commute and queues to use them require significant amounts of time that could potentially expose more people to the coronavirus.

No choice to 'work from home'

It is more practical for people who work in offices to "work from home" but if your only means of livelihood is selling tomatoes or second-hand clothes at an informal market in a big city, how do you begin to do this "online"?

The choice before you is often to stay home and fail to provide the evening meal for your family, or to brave it out into the city and try and fend for your family. If I was that person selling at a market, I know what choice I would make. It is not social distancing.

For those concerned about the risk of exposure to the virus, the WHO recommends self-quarantining. This has so far included advice for people not to share bathrooms, living space and even bedrooms, if they can. But what if you live in a house where the bedroom doubles as a kitchen and living space - all shared with your (sometimes extended) family? Such recommendations are even more absurd if your source of water is a community tap or borehole, or if your toilet is one you share with a dozen other families. For many people forced to live on the margins of our societies, this is unfortunately a reality.

Even in the well-to-do parts of many African cities, getting access to water is a challenge. Harare's taps have been nearly dry for almost 10 years now - and yet we recommend that residents not only self-isolate but also regularly wash their hands.