• Scientists can't explain puzzling lack of nigger coronavirus outbreaks

    From hamilton@21:1/5 to All on Fri Sep 11 05:03:53 2020
    XPost: alt.niggers, alt.disney, sac.politics
    XPost: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh

    The novel coronavirus has infected more than 26.35 million
    people, with just four countries accounting for over 15 million
    cases. They are the United States, Brazil, India and Russia —
    the same four that have been at the top for months. The US
    surprised the world when it rose to the top spot in multiple
    COVID-19 statistics, both for the total number of confirmed
    cases and the number of deaths. Since then, no other country has
    surpassed America.

    But scientists who are studying the pandemic have also
    identified another surprise of the pandemic. Some expected the
    African continent to be affected most heavily by the virus, but
    that wasn’t the case. South Africa stands out when it comes to
    the number of total cases, with nearly 631,000 infections. But
    fewer than 15,000 people have died of COVID-19. These figures
    are puzzling scientists looking to understand how the virus
    behaves and how it can be beaten.

    The hypothesis that poverty should have a significant impact on
    the spread of the virus doesn’t stand when it comes to the
    entire African continent. Developing countries like Brazil and
    India showed that the virus couldn’t be contained once it
    reached densely populated, but poor, neighborhoods.

    Experts expected the same thing to happen in Africa, but it
    didn’t. If anything, Africa is doing better than any other
    continent, both when it comes to cases and casualties. As BBC
    News explains, even if those numbers are significantly
    underreported, Africa still has it much better than other
    continents right now.

    “I thought we were heading towards a disaster, a complete
    meltdown,” Professor Shabir Madhi told BBC News. The UK’s top
    virologist echoed what others must have thought about the
    African coronavirus outbreak. But South Africa’s death rate is
    almost seven times lower than in the UK.

    Salim Abdool Karim, the head of the country’s COVID-19 response
    team, told the BBC that “most African countries don’t have a
    peak,” which is surprising. “I don’t understand why. I’m
    completely at sea,” he added.

    He explained that factors like population density would be a
    critical factor that would favor the rapid spread of the illness
    inside the African continent. Crowding in poverty-stricken areas
    makes social distancing all but impossible, and that increases
    the risk of COVID-19 spreading.

    One hypothesis that can explain the disparity between Africa and
    other continents concerns the overall age of the population. In
    general, the population of Africa is younger than in regions
    hardest-hit by COVID-19.

    Another hypothesis will sound familiar to those who have been
    following coronavirus developments closely. Some researchers
    have shown that other human coronaviruses that cause common
    colds can elicit an immune response that could provide
    protection against COVID-19. South African researchers went to
    work on that idea, attempting to analyze five-year-old blood
    samples that were conserved from a flu vaccine trial in Soweto.
    The plan was to look for any evidence that would explain why the
    African continent is faring much better against the illness than
    others. Those samples were compromised by technical issues that
    put a stop to the research.

    But the idea stands. The same crowded neighborhoods that would
    lead to the quick spread of other coronaviruses may have
    protected the population from SARS-CoV-2.

    “It’s a hypothesis. Some level of pre-existing cross-protective
    immunity … might explain why the epidemic didn’t unfold [the way
    it did in other parts of the world],” Mahdi said. “The
    protection might be much more intense in highly populated areas,
    in African settings. It might explain why the majority [on the
    continent] have asymptomatic or mild infections.”

    “I can’t think of anything else that would explain the numbers
    of completely asymptomatic people we’re seeing. The numbers are
    completely unbelievable,” he said.

    But if that hypothesis is true, why have Brazil and India seen
    massive COVID-19 surges in the past few months? Karim warned
    that even considering the evolution of the pandemic on the
    continent so far, Africa isn’t out of the woods. “I’m not sure
    whether one day the epidemic is going to spread like crazy
    here,” he said.

    https://nypost.com/2020/09/04/scientists-cant-explain-puzzling- lack-of-coronavirus-outbreaks-in-africa/

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