The Coronavirus and Its Impact This Summer

By David Gotman

For the past couple of months, the world has been navigating the coronavirus pandemic, and with the number of cases starting to flat line in many countries, like the United States, countries have started to open up. This was the expected result of the stay-at-home orders issued around the world. However, many experts have warned the worst is yet to come.

When discussing this issue, experts mostly point towards two locations: India, and the continent of Africa.

The government of India is currently on edge due to the coronavirus pandemic. India currently has the second biggest population with 1.38 billion. In addition, India has one of the highest population density rates. These two facts have created a monumental management problem for Narendra Modi, India’s Prime Minister, and his government. On one hand, he wants to curb the spread of the disease by issuing a country-wide stay-at-home order. On the other hand, that is nearly an impossible task in India. This is because while so many wealthy Indians live in high-density cities, many more head to the cities from the rural parts of India to look for work which tend to be minimum wage jobs. In fact, it is not uncommon for low-class Indians to rely on their employers for housing. With some estimates of India’s poverty rate being 29.8%, millions of Indians suddenly had to return home, which proved to be a formidable task. To enforce social distancing, Modi’s government drastically decreased the amount of public transportation available, forcing many to walk long distances on foot.

The picture below depicts the long lines that Indians had to wait to get onto overcrowded public transit systems.

With many Indians living in rural parts of the country, adequately testing will be a challenge due to India’s geography being one of the most diverse, especially getting tests out to the people living in remote and rural communities. Moreover, without adequate support, these communities will be the most vulnerable to an outbreak. In short, getting tests out to the millions living in hard-to-reach places will be an inevitable decision that needs to be made. 

Before the coronavirus pandemic, India’s government and its Muslim population were in a heated dispute regarding India’s Muslim population and the validity of their citizenship. In fact, Modi’s government moved to revoke the citizenship of Muslim Indians. This has led to a huge mismanagement problem because of inaccurate counts of the population in certain regions.

Furthermore, with President Trump freezing funding to the World Health Organization, India receiving any sort of financial aid from the WHO will be hard because it is currently stretched so thin due to this crisis.

Another mounting crisis that many media outlets are ignoring is the risk that the coronavirus poses to African countries. According to the WHO, African countries are known to have the worst health care systems in the world. For example, the Democratic Republic of Congo has an approximate population of over 84 million, but only 1 doctor for every 10,000 people. With malnutrition and diseases being commonplace, the coronavirus poses a significant threat to its population. Although the DRC’s government could put in place stay at home orders, even the smallest amount of cases could immediately overrun their health care system.

This is an issue that is going to affect African countries very soon. But with inadequate health care systems across the continent, the question is not if African countries can handle the coronavirus, but who will come and save them.