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Wins, missteps and lessons: African experts reflect on two years of COVID response

Wins, missteps and lessons: African experts reflect on two years of COVID response

ON 11 March 2020, just months after the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus was first identified in China, the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 to be a public health emergency of international concern. Over the next two years, COVID-19 would go on to infect nearly half a billion people, killing over 6 million around the world. Governments introduced strict lockdowns with stay-at-home orders that shut down the global economy. Now, most of the world is opening up. The Conversation Africa spoke to public health experts based in Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa to get their take on the biggest lessons so far. The…
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One year on: How the pandemic has affected refugees, asylum seekers, and migration

One year on: How the pandemic has affected refugees, asylum seekers, and migration

ERIC REIDY On 11 March 2020, the World Health Organization declared the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. As the virus first began spreading outside China, there was widespread fear that refugees, asylum seekers, and internally displaced people living in camps and densely populated urban areas would be hit particularly hard.  For reasons that still confound experts, the high death rates predicted in these settings have not come to pass – at least so far. As of mid-February, nearly 50,000 cases of COVID-19 and around 450 deaths have been recorded out of a global population of more than 80 million refugees and displaced people. “What's being reported suggests that what's happening…
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