Low COVID-19 cases, deaths in Africa surprise Bill Gates

Bill Gates, a co-founder of Microsoft and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), has expressed surprise about the low cases including death rate resulting from coronavirus in African countries.

According to him, he does not understand why coronavirus numbers have not been as high as predicted in Africa.

Gates and his wife, Melinda, had in more than one occasion, warned that there would be dead bodies on the streets of Africa if the world did not act fast enough.

Melinda said her heart was in Africa, adding that she was worried that the continent might not be able to handle the devastating effect of the virus.

Bill Gates, however, said in his end of the year notes that he was happy his prediction about Africa had not happened.

“One thing I’m happy to have been wrong about—at least, I hope I was wrong—is my fear that COVID-19 would run rampant in low-income countries. So far, this hasn’t been true,” he wrote.

In most of sub-Saharan Africa, for example, case rates and death rates remain much lower than in the U.S. or Europe and on par with New Zealand, which has received so much attention for its handling of the virus.

“The hardest-hit country on the continent is South Africa—but even there, the case rate is 40 pe rcent lower than in the US, and the death rate is nearly 50 per cent lower.

“We don’t have enough data yet to understand why the numbers aren’t as high as I worried they would get — but gave probable reasons Africa was not as affected as expected.”

Meanwhile, Nigeria is currently fighting the second wave of the coronavirus.

The Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 had last week announced a second wave of the dreaded virus.

The Federal Government on Tuesday directed civil servants from grade level 12 and below to stay at home.

They are to remain at home for five weeks following the second wave of the COVID-19 disease in Nigeria.

Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, NCDC, on Friday stated that COVID-19 related deaths now stand at 1,246.

Nigeria currently has a total of 82,747 confirmed cases in the country.