Coronavirus: Is the Virus not Spreading in Africa?

I've discussed COVID-19 in Africa a number of times. My last blog post was in August. At the time, I mentioned that back in April the WHO predicted that there would be 10 million cases within 3 to 6 months. The 6 months would be around now. Africa does have north of 1 million cases, but it is far below 10 million. Now there are probably way more cases than are being reported. When looking at the larger African countries, you have to go all the way down to the 100 ranking range to see countries like Morocco and South Africa pop up with under 80,000 tests per million (per Worldometer). Countries such as Australia, Russia, United Kingdom and the United States are all in the 300,000+ tests per million. I could see the possibility that there are more like 6 million cases in Africa. But let's be honest, even if there are millions of cases in Africa, I'm not reading news articles about how the virus is causing significant problems for the continent.

Instead, I'm reading articles such as the following:

Reuters (Sep 28):

The new coronavirus was already wreaking havoc in wealthy Asian and European nations, and a United Nations agency said in April that, even with social-distancing measures, the virus could kill 300,000 Africans this year.

In May the World Health Organization (WHO) warned that 190,000 people on the continent could die if containment measures failed. Yet as the world marks 1 million COVID-19 deaths, Africa is doing much better than expected, with a lower percentage of deaths than other continents.

Devex (Sep 30):

Speaking at a World Health Organization press briefing last week, professor Mark Woolhouse, director of Tackling Infections to Benefit Africa, a research partnership that has been analyzing data on the pandemic, said the group’s findings so far point to unique characteristics within Africa.

“Africa has had its own epidemic … I have worked very closely with the epidemic in the U.K. and elsewhere in Europe as well [and] they are different. They have different characteristics so I think there are going to be lessons to be learned from all this data from Africa for Africa,” he said. 

NBC News (Sep 25):

"The initial disease prediction models painted a very bleak picture of severe devastation of lives and economies in Africa," Dr. Sam Agatre Okuonzi, who works at Arua Regional Referral Hospital in northern Uganda, said Thursday in a World Health Organization news briefing. "In Uganda, it was predicted that by September, there would be 600,000 cases of Covid-19 and 30,000 deaths. But the reality is starkly different."

Uganda has 7,064 reported coronavirus cases and 70 deaths, according to a Johns Hopkins University tally.

. . . [D. Matshidiso Moeti, the WHO's regional director for Africa] said there are concerns that numbers of new infections could spike in the coming weeks as restrictions are eased and many African countries slowly return to normal.
  

The articles all mention similar reasons for why the spread across the continent appears to be so limited:

1. Age of the population.

2. Tuberculosis vaccine.

3. Exposure to previous coronaviruses.

4. Experience dealing with Ebola. 

5. Lack of global travel.

6. Population spends more time outdoor than other parts of the globe.

7. Quick lockdowns.

Since I think the virus is likely far more spread across the continent than what is being reported, I'm going to argue that my first point is the most likely reason. We know that younger people are far less likely to die from the virus than older people. Visual Capitalist puts the average age in Africa at 18. That compares to 35 in North America and 42 in Europe.

I don't have a medical background so I don't have anything enlightening to say about points 2 through 4.

Point 5 just seems contrary to blog posts I've written in regards to China's role in Africa. It just seems like the virus should have taken hold in various parts of Africa due to travel with China. Of course, the same was argued about why wasn't the virus found in Indonesia even though they had significant tourism from China. Maybe like Indonesia, Africa got lucky and had a late start with the virus even though there was significant travel from China. But once again, as mentioned, I think there are multiples more than the current estimates due to a lack of testing.

Point 6 is an argument I've heard for why Americans should spend time outdoors. Not only is the argument that the virus doesn't spread very well in the open air, but also it is a good way to get Vitamin D. Though I don't believe there are any formal studies that prove that Vitamin D is helpful, there are those who say we should make sure we get Vitamin D as a risk avoidance tactic.

Point 7 might just mean that Africa will see a delayed first wave. I remember seeing headlines about how Argentina was doing such a good job containing the virus. Currently, they have the fifth highest case count per million in South America. Admittedly, there are only 14 countries in South America, but they are still up the rankings. The point is you can only contain this virus for so long (caveat for island nations such as New Zealand and Iceland). How long can economies remain in lockdown before the population revolts against that policy?