Africa's high urban population densities, high numbers of day workers, and weak medical systems would seem to make it highly vulnerable to COVID-19. But Africa could emerge from the pandemic with less lasting damage than many fear.
NEW YORK – In The Fortunes of Africa, author Martin Meredith describes a Dutch sailing ship that dropped off a load of laundry for the Khoikhoi, the local inhabitants of the southwestern cape of Africa whom Europeans called Hottentots. The year was 1713. The Khoikhoi washed the laundry and were duly paid. But the laundry was carrying smallpox. Over the next year, the community was laid to waste. Nine out of ten Khoikhoi died, and the tribe eventually disappeared from the Cape.
NEW YORK – In The Fortunes of Africa, author Martin Meredith describes a Dutch sailing ship that dropped off a load of laundry for the Khoikhoi, the local inhabitants of the southwestern cape of Africa whom Europeans called Hottentots. The year was 1713. The Khoikhoi washed the laundry and were duly paid. But the laundry was carrying smallpox. Over the next year, the community was laid to waste. Nine out of ten Khoikhoi died, and the tribe eventually disappeared from the Cape.