Coronavirus Measures: Pushing Africa Into An Absolute Poverty Trap

At any level, the poverty line is a mark of social inclusion/exclusion. As such, the obvious casualties of shelter-at-home orders to combat the corona virus are those without enough resources to secure basic life necessities. Perhaps, the Covid-19 is a wake-up call to African governments to put in place functioning public assistance programmes to counteract poverty threats.

• Publications
• 21 Mar, 2020

Certainly, the renowned Pan-Africanist, W.E. B. Du Bois did not have Coronavirus in mind when he declared that: “the problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line”. Uncannily, U.S. President Donald Trump, who label the 2019 novel coronavirus as the “China Virus”, seems to project the colour line as “the problem of the 21st century”. He is dead wrong.

Coronavirus is an equal opportunity global pandemic. On March 27, U.S. becomes first country to report 100,000 confirmed coronavirus cases, becoming the country with the most confirmed cases globally. And across the Atlantic, the pandemic has a new prime victim, the British Prime Minister Boris Johnson who tested positive for the virus on Friday March 27. Luckily, countries are beginning to take the pandemic seriously as an existential threat to humanity, imposed curfews, lockdowns and related restrictions to check its spread. In Kenya, President Kenyatta announced a nationwide night-time curfew effective March 27.