Covid In Africa

This article is written by Dr Doug Mitchell for the IPA.

With the worst of the pandemic subsiding, attention has slowly shifted to government responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, in particular focussing on some of the more draconian measures: lockdowns, mandatory masks and vaccine mandates.

Given the horrors of what is unfolding in China, these measures are very much a live issue.

In this context, I would like to draw your attention to an interesting analysis of the impact of COVID-19 on Africa versus the rest of the world published on the ZeroHedge website. [Read here]

I would like to draw your attention to the graph in the article that I reproduce below. It shows very low vaccination rates and very low COVID deaths in several African countries, far, far lower than in Europe, the USA and Australia. Also, these countries certainly had minimal lockdowns. Poor people cannot afford to not work. We don’t know about use of masks, but these are most unlikely in poor countries.

The difference between these African countries and the rich country world is so large that it will overwhelm measurement errors.

Why have these countries done so well, thereby confounding our “experts”?.

We know from studies in rich countries, including Australia, that people with adequate vitamin D levels rarely have serious COVID side effects. Expect people in Africa to have adequate vitamin D. They usually lead an outdoor life with exposure to strong sun – good conditions for making vitamin D, though darker skin is a negative. Much lower obesity than in rich countries is a significant factor as shown in the second graph below. My money is on these two factors mainly accounting for African successes.

So what can we do? We can correct for more indoor life and weaker sunshine by supplementing with vitamin D. (I take 10,000 IU per day with fat plus vitamin K2). Obesity is a harder problem but the government could at least warn people about this risk.

Australia and other rich countries have put huge efforts into lockdowns, vaccinations, masks and in developing drug-based COVID treatments.  There has been little or no effort to investigate successes in Africa and elsewhere, and to trial treatments such as augmenting vitamin D. Governments are devoted to lockdown/vaccination/mask protocols. These unsuccessful  actions are best described as an attack on the citizenry.

Dr Douglas Mitchell is a retired medical research scientist and an IPA member. He has a PhD in chemistry from the University of London and worked as a research scientist at the New York State Department of Health in the areas of toxicology, chemistry, instrument design and statistics.  He has also conducted research on the treatment of metastatic cancer. From 2002 to 2005 he was the Chancellor of Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne.