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The NYT's frustration that Africans may not be dying from COVID in sufficient numbers continues. On Dec. 26, @sherifink assured readers that "The Worst is Yet to Come" in Africa. Today, @ruthmaclean paints with an equally broad brush: Africans can't count https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/02/world/africa/africa-coronavirus-deaths-underreporting.html
“Every time somebody says ‘I’m so glad Africa has been spared,’ my toes just curl,” Maclean hears from a London epidemiologist. The Times and wider Western press echo this sentiment with absurdly generalized articles purporting to say something meaningful about all of Africa...
...a continent of 54 countries and 1.2 billion people. If you have a thesis, Africa a pretty vast hunting ground to poach supporting anecdotal evidence for just about anything.
I live in Kenya. They test very few. It costs $80. The numbers are not reliable. But there is no mass death, either (I'm glad, my toes aren't curling, whatever that means anyway). An in-depth investigation by country would be compelling. A scattershot smear of "Africa" is not.
Maclean's piece is snarky. She leads with a tale of a clown - a man who dances in the streets and "made everyone laugh." When he dies of covid "everyone" in his Lagos neighborhood hears, "Everyone, that is, except the government." But why is that? Because people are dumb?
Or perhaps because Nigerians have a different relationship with their post-colonial government? The latter isn't explored: She doesn't interview a single bereaved African who may offer insight. We're left with a prof from NYU Abu Dhabi @helleringer143:
"There are very, very few countries that even attempt an estimation..." And testimony from "half a dozen casket carpenters" in Nigeria that business has "been brisk" (not much of a scientific metric for Nigeria, let alone "Africa").
Why there are lower death rates reported in certain countries is an important story worth reporting, but the NYT has the resources to do it in a legitimate, focus way. Why so insistently generalize about "Africa"? In 2021? Come on.
