COVID-19 pandemic in the African continent: forecasts of cumulative cases, new infections, and mortality

Yohannes Kinfu; Uzma Alam; Tom Achoki

is the (which was not peer-reviewed) The copyright holder for this preprint Therefore, large scale measures that are aimed at limiting population movement, across countries as well as increasing the social distance among populations, are not enough, or at best may prove to be impractical to address the pandemic in the African context. Comprehensive response measures should be contextualized and seek to address some of the underlying individual and structural factors that are likely to complicate the epidemic within these environments. It is crucial to balance interventions geared towards preventing the spread of the epidemic with the need to maintaining livelihoods and social cohesion. Measures such as appropriate messaging, provision of adequate water and sanitation subsidies, food as well as targeted restriction of movement (e.g. from urban to rural) would go a long way to mitigate the spread.