Fortunately, that has not proved to be the case. As we entered 2021 the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention was reporting just over 2.6 million cases and 63,300 deaths across the Continent.

That’s roughly one case for every 500 people and much less than levels seen in Europe and North America.

This may be due to lack of testing – we had seen significant spikes in other parts of the world in the autumn as testing become more commonplace – but there is no definitive reason why. Maybe the climate, a younger population, living habits, even previous exposure to pathogens. It could also be due to the fast and strong action taken by governments. After decades attempting to break down borders, restrictions were quickly re-installed. The ongoing fear of COVID-19 means these are becoming even harder to breakdown.

Although most African countries have fully – in a few cases – or partially – in the majority – reactivated their air connectivity, there are still migration restrictions in the vast majority of them. For some though the freeze in air transport activity continues. Algeria is among them and its Minister of Health Abderrahmane Benbouzid stated in Feb-2021 that there are no plans to reopen the country’s air borders until coronavirus cases decline “in a sustainable way, after a few weeks, or even months”. It is now a year since it introduced its lockdown.

The problem is most of the initial supply of COVID-19 vaccines have been pre-ordered by wealthy nations. This occurred even before the safety and efficacy data was made available. In the 1990s it was six years after antiretroviral (ARV) treatment for HIV/Aids was introduced in the US for it to reach the continent, despite it having a much bigger population of people infected.