https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-coronavirus-hits-the-global-south-11587422555?mod=hp_opin_pos_3
The pandemic may have peaked in many countries, but for much of the world the worst is yet to come. Despite hopes that warmer temperatures would slow Covid-19’s spread in the Global South, the disease is spreading with relentless speed in countries like Kenya and Brazil. The strategies that have limited and slowed the virus in the Global North won’t work for the most part in the South. Without a vaccine or treatments, the people living there will be almost as powerless before the disease as humanity once was against smallpox.
Take the “lockdown” strategy. The purpose of this extremely costly policy is to “flatten the curve,” by shutting down much of the economy to ensure that health systems aren’t overwhelmed by waves of desperately ill patients.
In much of the world, this strategy is impossible. Only rich countries and rich peoples can afford lockdowns. In much of the Global South a substantial percentage of the population lives from hand to mouth. Many people make money selling things on the street or in crowded informal markets. They draw their water from communal taps; they use community latrines, if they have sanitation at all. Hundreds of millions do not have reliable access to clean water, much less to soap or hand sanitizer. After a few days without work, hunger will drive people back out onto the streets.
Even if lockdowns could be sustained, they would do little good. There are five ventilators in the Democratic Republic of Congo, one for about 20 million people. Ten African countries have no ventilators at all. Even if the disease’s spread could be slowed, medical capacity in the Global South is so lacking that there’s no chance it could be built up in time to help. The most stringent lockdown could not prevent a massive public-health crisis in many countries, and no such lockdown can endure.