With Responses Like These, Who Needs a Pandemic?

The Open Society Initiative has announced a Covid19 Emergency Response Fund. Great to hear, but first key area on their list is health system strengthening. Health systems have been in need of funding for decades.  

Second on the list is mitigating the economic impact of Covid19, but that is far more a matter of the devastating effects of lockdowns, people unable to work, purchase food, tend to food production, sell produce, etc. 

A few headlines highlight some of the emergencies faced by African countries and they seem to be either: 1) caused by the response to Covid19, not the virus itself, or 2) emergencies that go back many decades, and increase the harm that kneejerk lockdowns, curfews and the like can cause. 

Unemployment, nothing new, but exacerbated by global lockdowns: Nigeria Records 21.8 Million Jobless People After Covid-19 Effects 

Female Genital Mutilation, nothing to do with the pandemic, but NGOs need to follow the money: No Christmas for West Pokot Girls 

Economic inclusiveness, again, every cause needs to mention the current focus of the media: Covid-19 - Where to From Here for Efforts to Support Youth Economic Inclusion? 

The number of confirmed deaths from Covid19 in Africa is about a third of the number of people who die of rabies every year: Lessons From a Community-Driven Rabies Vaccination Campaign in Kenya 

Diabetes, a recognized risk factor for many conditions long before Covid19: Covid-19 - Understanding the Increased Risk in People With Diabetes 

Foot and Mouth, like all other health conditions, put on the back burner. If there’s an outbreak of this disease now, countries that have closed their economic and administrative functions down will be able to do little to protect themselves: Mozambique: Foot-and-Mouth Outbreak in Maputo Province 

Tourism, conservation, environmental and other projects, all threatened by lockdowns: In Kenya, Maasai Entrepreneur Moves Conservancy Beyond Tourism Hit By Pandemic 

Hardly surprising that food prices have rocketed. They are unlikely to drop anytime soon. Unlike most articles on the pandemic/response, this one identifies other pressures driving up food prices, all of which were there before Covid19, but are made a lot worse by the response: Food Prices in Nigeria Have Shot Through the Roof 

If countries can’t get food locally, or import it from other countries because they can’t get around restrictions on movement and trade, they may end up depending on illicit trading, black markets and other threats to economic and political stability. The above list is from today’s AllAfrica.com newsletter, not at all exhaustive, unfortunately. 

Many are now questioning the wisdom of rigid Covid19 responses urged on them by international institutions, NGOs, donors and foreign leaders. Tanzania is one of the only one to impose a modest lockdown with a viable exit plan. Other countries could soon follow their example. None can afford the millions shelled out by rich countries. 

Covid-19 in Tanzania: Pursuit of Health Sovereignty?

What’s the difference between Kenya’s response to Covid-19 and Tanzania’s? It’s difficult to know about Tanzania because journalistic practice dictates that if an African leader stands up to western leaders, experts or even mere bureaucrats or journalists, they must be slapped down, ridiculed and hounded for the remainder of their office for their temerity.

It’s not so difficult to find out about Kenya’s response: a curfew was imposed and violently enforced, many people were held (effectively, interned) in insanitary conditions, some were beaten and some died, children will remain out of school until next January, hospitals are said to be overwhelmed (aren’t they always?), there are restrictions on movement, shortages of food, etc.

In Tanzania, children were sent home for a few months, but people were encouraged to go to work, feed their families, take care of themselves so that they could take care of people who were not able to. Magufuli refused to go running to the international community for handouts earmarked for (well-behaved) African leaders.

Consequences from Kenya's response to Covid-19 are far more severe than those from the virus itself. Of course, Tanzania is going to have to face the consequences of the responses of countries around them, and the consequences of their trading partners’ respective responses; for example, there is already a massive drop in tourism, globally, something a lot of poor countries disproportionately depend on.

But perhaps the difference between Kenya’s and Tanzania’s response to the virus runs deeper than the daily struggle for basic things, such as food, habitation, education, healthcare and the rest. The BBC, in that sneering tone specially honed for Africans, have coupled Magufuli’s approach to Covid-19 with his objections to ‘imperialism’.

In fact, Magufuli objects to the likes of mining operators from rich countries granting his country a paltry 3%, quaintly referred to as ‘royalties’, of anything declared as a profit. He advises people to balance rich countries' 'giving' against what they take, which is not unreasonable. Or perhaps the BBC doesn't recognise imperialism that hasn't been branded as such by them?

While the Constitution of the World Health Organization states that “Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity”, their response to the virus appears to view health as the avoidance of certain pathogens deemed more catastrophic than others, pretty much at all costs. Tanzania, and all poor countries, have a lot more to worry about than Covid-19. (Don't we all?)

In their anxiety to depict Magufuli as an unworthy opponent of imperialism, an incapable leader of Tanzania and a generally uninformed person whose tenure verges on dictatorial (and I’m certainly not saying he’s faultless), many commentators have missed something important. Africa and Africans won’t be ‘rising’ when, or because the English Guardian or the BBC plasters it up in banner headlines.

Perhaps it will happen when leaders like Magufuli, human as he is, stand up to the sanctimony of the western media, the neo-imperialism of wealthy countries, and the complicity of the ‘international’ institutions they fund. But the difference between Kenya’s and Tanzania’s response? Tanzania refused to be cowed into overseeing a complete breakdown of the economy, of law and order; they even refused to take money to do what Kenya and other countries happily did.

It could be argued that Magufuli is striving for health sovereignty, which is, by definition, autonomous, unlike the top-down, one-size-fits-all ‘solutions’ that rich countries and their institutions are so keen for poor countries to adopt. At least, he seems to be highlighting a tension between the WHO’s definition of health and their approach to health emergencies, especially in poor countries (but not exclusively).


Much remains to be seen, but what Magufuli has done so far has resulted in a lot less harm than what Kenyatta has done, which is just more of the same. In contrast, Magufuli has stood up, with his people; he has refused to be goaded, and to be induced into handing over everything to rich countries and institutions. He refused to betray the Tanzanian people, refused the readies. How many other leaders, in Africa and elsewhere, can claim the same? 

Tanzania and Covid-19: Some Accidental Truths?

A British journalist based in Tanzania claims in The Spectator that the WHO is ‘concerned’ about the government’s lack of transparency during the Covid-19 pandemic. Writing under the pen name ‘Tom James’, the journalist gives the impression that there is an extremely serious Covid-19 outbreak in the country, one that the government is refusing to address.

However, the story is undermined by the journalist’s description of how things are in Dar es Salaam, the country’s biggest city, during this outbreak. For a start, he admits that there is little or no evidence for any deepening crisis, but he continues to write as if the absence of evidence means things must be worse than the government says.

The journalist could return to Britain, although he chooses not to do so (because he wants to look after his dogs). But clearly, things are not so bad that he must leave; he’s got a job and a home; he has a car that he is still able to run, so no fuel shortages; he can go to the market to buy supplies, so no panic buying, hoarding or sudden spikes in prices of staples.

It sounds, if the journalist is to be believed, as if everyone there is just getting on with it. We get a description of normal, everyday life in Tanzania: the police are patrolling the highways, fining people for anything and nothing; a motorbike taxi with three passengers is on the road; only the driver has a mask, but no helmet; again, nothing unusual. What, I’d like to know, would ‘Tom James’ prefer?

The English Guardian claims that Tanzania’s president is undercounting cases and deaths. But the US is overcounting, something the Guardian seems oblivious of; so is the UK, and they are collecting records that cannot be reanalyzed, should anyone ever wish to know the true numbers of cases, deaths and excess deaths.

If President Magufuli is 'playing down' the threat of Covid-19, the US and the UK are talking it up (Norway is considering the possibility that their own lockdown was unnecessary).

The media frequently uses the word ‘authoritarian’ when referring to the Tanzanian president. So, what if Magufuli did impose a lockdown? Wouldn’t that be even more authoritarian than not doing so? In most African countries, people can’t just stop working, self-isolate at home, work from home, get their food delivered or hop in their car, unlike the more fortunate ‘Tom James’.

I doubt if he and others criticizing Magufuli would like to see Tanzania follow the example set by Kenya. Human Rights Watch describes a country completely unprepared to ‘isolate’ thousands of possible Covid-19 cases, as unprepared as all poor countries are.

In Kenya, people have been rounded up and held with numerous other people who may or may not have the virus. Even in the UK one doctor writes: "many patients acquired the infection while already hospitalised for other causes". Infection control in East African hospitals is not great; how much worse will it be in these temporary holding facilities in Kenya?

Kenya imposed a curfew early on in the pandemic and police have been beating people who break the curfew. But, as the Human Rights Watch article shows, conditions in the country don’t allow everyone to drop their normal routines and get home before 7. People can’t easily ‘socially distance’ in overcrowded slums, cramped public transport and other overstretched services.

An article in African Arguments describes just how authoritarian, and how destructive, the lockdown is in Kenya (although the same publication in April called for a lockdown in Tanzania).

Al Jazeera point out that opposition leaders in Tanzania accuse the government of lying about Covid-19 and of failing to address the crisis. But what country’s opposition doesn’t accuse their government of lying and of making unwise decisions? It’s an election year, and Magufuli wants to win, as does the opposition, and these phenomena are not peculiar to Tanzania, nor even to African countries.

Usually the first to shout ‘fire’ in a crowded building (and they have done plenty of shouting about Covid-19 in Tanzania), the BBC has a short piece entitled “Tanzanian doctors 'not overwhelmed by pandemic'.” (You need to page down a long way to find it. It's worth noting that the BBC’s content about Tanzania seems to depend heavily on contributions from the public, social media and other questionable sources.)


One of the worst things that can happen to poor countries during a pandemic is that people panic, as it can bring about the very conditions that will only deepen the crisis. 'Tom James' appears to want someone to shout 'fire', although he doesn't quite do it himself. But, however inadvertently, his article suggests that no one in Tanzania is listening to him or his media colleagues. Let’s hope that continues.