By Alhaji U. N'jai
In Africa, curfews and lockdowns as measures to contain Covid-19 infections may in fact help to spread the virus among the population rather than slow it down.
Based on real-time anthropological observations and review of the current science around the virus, over 90 percent of infections happen indoors or in confined spaces.
In Sierra Leone, based on observations in Freetown and the provinces, people spend less time indoors even at home and more time outside. The prevailing culture is one of “kip kompin nah veranda”, which loosely translates to keeping company out in the veranda.
Apart from the communal culture that enhances this behavior proper ventilation is a challenge in most homes during the day, so it is a nice way of getting cool breeze while chilling with family, friends and neighbors.
This predominant outdoor lifestyle found in Sierra Leone and other African countries contrasts with the predominant indoor culture of Western countries. Of course the indoor culture of the US and European cultures, a consequence of weather and greater individualism, has some advantages when it comes to social distancing and lockdowns for control of Covid-19. I will come back to this in due course.
Early on during the Covid-19 pandemic, the biggest worry was how Africa was going to deal with congestion in urban market places. Considering the crowded nature of these markets, poor sanitation and hygiene conditions and the practical impossibility to social distance, it would seem like a prime area for Covid-19 transmission. So why have the Covid-19 infection rates been relatively low? The answer may lie in the outdoor nature of these markets. For instance, the 45 markets I have worked with for Freetown City Council look heavily crowded but much of the traffic around the market happens outdoors. Hence, the transmissibility and infectability rates tend to be lower in these outdoor conditions than if same number of people was to be found indoors.
This is likely so because the microdroplets that account for the lingering effects of Covid-19 infections quickly dissipate in outdoor aerated conditions. Covid-19 transmission occurs via a combination of respiratory droplets, large or macro-(propelled 1-2 meters) and micro-droplets that tend to go further than two meters and linger much longer in the air around confined or indoor spaces. Experiments have shown both droplets are quickly dissipated in outdoor aerated conditions, which greatly minimizes infection.
Now, what curfews and lockdowns essentially do in Sierra Leone and many other African countries is to force people to the indoor environment, which – unlike in the more developed, highly individual nations of the West – is tiny and congested with not enough space for social distancing.
Prolonged lockdowns under this crowded indoor condition increase rather than decrease the risk of transmitting and getting infected with Covid-19. It essentially creates new networks for spread of the disease by bringing people much closer together in a confined space, thereby fueling the spread of infections.
Lockdowns as a means of slowing down Covid-19 transmission work well in the West and other developed countries, where individualism allows for greater social distancing in households. Furthermore, as a mechanism for slowing down virus transmission, lockdowns in Sierra Leone during Ebola made sense because its transmission was linked to bodily contact (sweat, saliva, urine, blood, etc); and due to the magnitude of spread and deaths, drastic actions were needed.
Curfews also create an additional rush for transportation and crowded conditions in a confined vehicular environment in Sierra Leone and many other African countries. Again, this contrasts with developed nations where various transportation solutions from buses, taxis, trains, personal vehicles allow for greater social distancing.
The net effect of these actions in Sierra Leone and other African countries is that it unintentionally drives the spread of the disease, which would not have been the case in no-lockdown and no-curfew conditions. The effect of the strict lockdowns and curfews resulting in increased spread of the Covid-19 disease is so far consistent with data on the spread of antibodies and immunities seen in South Africa and in initial unpublished results of our seroprevalence and epidemiological analysis of the Covid-19 trend in Sierra Leone.
South African scientists at University of Witwatersrand have shown in studies conducted in Western Cape and Gauteng Province that over 40 percent of the population had developed antibodies, with the majority unaware that they had ever been infected. The researchers believed that South Africa’s strict lockdown forced people to remain in close proximity with one another, especially in heavily populated townships that surround the major cities. Citizens were also expected to queue for essentials like food and social security grants during this period, which accounted for the rise in unintended infections reflected in the spread of antibodies. Similarly, in Sierra Leone, we see appreciable rise in cases with lockdowns and curfews from March 31st through June, and a dip in these numbers to zero from July through November as lockdowns and curfews were eased.
Interestingly, in South Africa and to initial findings from Sierra Leone, we see a consistent spread of antibodies and immunity within the population, suggesting that the lockdowns and curfews may have had unintentional effect of spreading the infections, leading to some form of herd immunity.
So, it is likely that our outdoor culture lifestyle in Africa maybe one among other factors that account for the low incidence of infections despite the crowded nature of our societies. Lockdowns and curfews in Africa may have also contributed unintentionally to spreading low level exposures of the virus by bringing people in close proximity and generating asymptomatic conditions which is linked to herd immunity. Hence, both factors, one of the innate outdoor culture and adaptive indoor culture from curfews and lockdowns, may potentially have worked in Sierra Leone and Africa’s favor against Covid-19, despite the latter being accidental.
About the author:
Dr. Alhaji Umar N’jai aka #Jata #Meejoh #ThePeoplesScientist is a Senior Scientist, Professor, Panafrican Scholar, Founder & Chief Strategist of Project 1808, Inc., and Freelance writer ‘Roaming in the Mountains of Kabala Republic’.
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