Covid-19 pandemic: Africa is outperfoming the rest of the world
Obscured by the myriad stories of coronavirus global devastation are three headlines from the continent with no shortage of epidemics, man-made and natural disasters. That would be Africa. Of its 54 countries, six are among the top 10 fastest-growing economies in the world this year.
The continent is the favorite bazaar for appreciating equity after Eastern Europe and has one of the stock market’s best-performing industries: communications.
Africa finds itself with fewer Covid-19 cases than other heavily populated regions. Even after testing almost tripled to 1.2 million, the director of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, John Nkengasong, said the continent’s percentage is relatively small. Africa has the largest percentage of youth in the world, a higher average temperature and relatively more people outdoors most of the time, according to an April 28 report in the Financial Times.
Although South Africa remains an outlier, with surging daily Covid-19 infections similar to the U.S rate, Ethiopia, Kenya and Nigeria reflect the continent’s low percentage of cases relative to its population, according to Bloomberg News and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Even as the U.S. daily infection rate based on population declines, the measure is still 24 to 46 times higher than in Ethiopia, Kenya and Nigeria.
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