Freetown | 30th March 2020 | Vertex Media
About 3 months since the Coronavirus outbreak was announced in Wuhan, China, most of world has been shutdown. A strange pneumonia was reported to WHO Country Office in China on the 31st December 2019, and the WHO later named it the novel ‘COVID-19’ on February 11th, 2020. To date (30th, March 2020), the virus has infected 776,105, and has killed 37,126 from about 200 countries across the globe, with 164,628 recovered so far. The epicenter of COVID-19 has moved from China to the United States.
Africa is the least hit continent of COVID-19, with about 4,700 confirmed cases and over 150 deaths. The virus has infected 46 countries, with 8 virus-free African countries, including Sierra Leone.
Sierra Leone is the only West African nation that is free from the Coronavirus infection, but equally suffers from its impacts across the world, in terms of economic activities. Quite recently, the Government of Sierra Leone has announced restrictive measures on public gathering, airport and border closures, including a State of Emergency to keep the virus at bay.
In 2014, the Ebola outbreak took place at the boundaries between Guinea Liberia and Sierra Leone, and it was more obvious for a spillover into Sierra Leone and it did. Inversely, COVID-19 outbreak happened hundreds of thousands of miles away from Sierra Leone, more likely to be prevented from entering Sierra Leone than Ebola in terms of proximity.
But is Sierra Leone being speared by this Coronavirus due to our preparedness or discipline? Or is it luck that played a greater part for our zero case status? Here is my assessment of possible factors that helped us stay free from the virus.
One hard fact that’s responsible for our COVID-19 free status is because our country is poorly connected to the rest of the world. Sierra Leone is among the countries with lowest traffic of people coming from outside for either trade, tourism or something else. This is fact. And it has exposed how we have not been attracting tourists or investors into our country, despite otherwise what we have been told to be the hottest destination for tourism. The trade and tourism hotspots are the most affected by this outbreak.
As of 2017, Sierra Leone recorded about 55,000 visitors on international tourism; far lower than Ghana’s over 800,000 and South Africa’s over 10,000,000 visitors the same year. The above figures can easily tell you that Sierra Leone is doing poorly in tourism and trade, hence we are lowly connected to the rest of the world. We have one of the lowest, if not the lowest, air traffic in the world. This has largely contributed to our poor economy as well.
Similarly, in outbreaks like these that originally happened in far places from Sierra Leone, might not necessarily or directly affect Sierra Leone in the magnitude it has affected other advanced countries with high tourism boost. Since the spread of the virus wholly dependent on human to human transmission, it is clear that those advanced nations on trade and tourism would be hard hit in such crisis.
Sierra Leone’s 0 COVID-19 case cannot be banked on our discipline or preparedness to stop the virus. It’s a fact that Sierra Leone embarked on restrictive measures on airport and border closures after 3 months the Coronavirus outbreak was announced in China, over 2 months the virus reached Europe, America, and Africa. Too late to prepare. A period well enough for this virus to reach us, had Sierra Leone been one of the hottest destinations for international trade and tourism.
Pictorial and video evidence of state officials escaping with people from quarantine homes are clear to show that we are not disciplined in this fight. Rather, it is more of fate than preparedness or discipline that make us COVID-19 free nation.
By Ibrahim Sorious Samura
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