You Read It First ...

There is an article on the BBC this morning: Coronavirus in Africa: Could poverty explain mystery of low death rate? It advances three possible reasons why predictions in South Africa in particular were "completely unbelievable": immunity in a crowded environment, people's median age, and a strict lockdown. On this blog, on 24 March, I quoted an African proverb of my mother-in-law: "If you are scared of a sickness, you will catch it." Although I did not name COVID-19, it was in that context that I wrote. Then on 1 May -- four months ago, when COVID-19 barely registered here on the graph -- I suggested that South Africa's median age would render predictions false. OBSERVATION: You read it first on this blog. What is worrying is that South Africa's chief virologist now said, "I thought we were heading towards a disaster, a complete meltdown." People put policy in place on that basis, and the destructive aspects of that policy are yet to be assessed. I have said that South Africa might have done better if it had consulted its elders, rather than the young academics as we did. This is not to overlook the many tragic deaths.