The “Covid-19 Kairos” has provided governments with the opportunity to leverage the pandemic to create comprehensive sustainable economic development policies for all Africans.
The coronavirus pandemic seemed to spare the African continent in February and early March, when the rate of infections and then fatalities escalated globally. Based on the SARS or Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome pointer that the coronavirus is inactivated by high temperatures , some alluded to the sun as Africa’s saving grace.
In Kenya, although there is no strict lockdown, the government moved swiftly to provide directives on social distancing, defining essential services, suspending mass gathering, and restricting movement by putting in place a curfew and defining “hot spots” to where travel was limited to commercial vehicles.
Sadly, the pandemic has unmasked the desperate state of health services in most African countries and in particular in rural and poor communities where healthcare services have long suffered neglect and underinvestment. In some countries, the pace of testing has been very slow, worsened by a shortage of hospital beds and ventilators while ICU facilities in most rural areas are limited or non-existent.
All governments should consider such policies that will help citizens catch up with the new digital-first reality that was ushered in by the fourth industrial revolution and has now been cemented by Covid-19.
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