Virus deaths may not be the greatest challenge ahead for Africa

Red roses are hardly a priority for people in a virus-wrecked global economy, and one day recently the world’s flower market pretty much collapsed. At the vast Aalsmeer auction in Holland, there were scented mountains of unsold roses, gerberas and tulips. Some last stems still find their way into bouquets across a world that has cancelled all gatherings except funerals. But in the coming months, cut flowers might become a sight as rare as bananas were for children in the Blitz.

This story is a disaster for Kenya, my home country, which was until last month a top flower exporter. While western states repurpose their economies towards becoming vast hospitals, Africa is too poor to cope with the medical emergency, and virus deaths will probably not be the greatest challenge ahead. Even in a good year, multitudes go hungry, while respiratory diseases, diarrhoea, Aids, malaria, tuberculosis and measles scythe down 3.5 million people. In Kenya, some wags have pointed out that police enforcing a dusk-to-dawn curfew have already killed more people than the virus has locally — but later, accurately calculating total deaths from Covid-19 in Africa will involve greater guesswork even than elsewhere, since mathematical modelling tends to get lost in the Congo’s rainforests or the shifting sands of Somalia.

If the virus spares the young, Africa is better off than Europe. Our median age is less than 20; three quarters are under 35. Most ordinary folk are fit, slim, non-smoking and healthy. Few live beyond 60, since misrule has so impoverished many hospitals that they lack even aspirins. The local joke in Kenya is that we have more parliamentarians (350) than ICU beds (130). ‘Underlying health issues’ affect mainly the tiny urban class of richer, often politically connected folk, who pick up westerners’ bad habits.