Mathanzua
JF-Expert Member
- Jan 4, 2017
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- The late President Magufuli may have been ridiculed in the West for rejecting lockdowns and encouraging prayer,but as ex-World Health Organization scientist Dr David Bell explains, Tanzania's late president John Magufuli is not seen as a pariah by many in the scientific community ,he’s infact seen as a life-saver.
If you read the BBC website, you probably can eventually believe that Tanzania’s late President was either a rebel, a ‘Covid denier’ or just plain stupid.
In reality, he was none of these.President Magufuli was actually a highly educated scientist with a PhD in chemistry, who probably saved thousands of lives by refusing to embrace lockdowns and other knee-jerk reactions foisted on the people in much of Africa and the West by the draconian NWO cabal.
Magufuli’s decision not to lock down was consistent with the evidence based pandemic guidelines released by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2019.
He rightly predicted that Covid-19 mortality in Africa would be very low compared to other major killers like malaria, tuberculous (TB) and HIV-Aids, and followed good public health principles in prioritising these higher burden diseases that particularly afflict the young, while telling Tanzanians not to panic.
He also prioritised keeping the economy growing, which is in the long term the most effective way of improving life expectancy and health. In short, he acted as you would expect a well trained scientist and rational public health expert to act in the Tanzanian context.
Throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, the media has demanded harsher, longer and harder lockdowns, as if they were normal or helpful.But they rarely point out that no pandemic plan ever recommended mass business closures and restrictions on religious freedom, travel or normal societal function before 2020, because removing these is expected to cause greater harm, and infringes greatly on fundamental human rights.Infact none of these measures were implemented during the SARS, MERS or swine flu outbreaks of recent years,so why now. People attended places of worship, caught packed buses and trains.The young went clubbing and danced and sang and kissed!The same was true for Tanzanians during this pandemic too.
Most Tanzanians are young and not obese, and so are at very low risk from Covid-19, if it exisists at all.
President Magufuli received a lot of bad press for telling his countrymen to go to church at the start of the pandemic to ‘pray’ Covid away.
Because of prayers Magufuli believed that mass gatherings would not be expected to put the vast majority of the Tanzanian population at significant risk,and it rightly did so.
After all tens of thousands of sports fans went to stadiums in Florida and Texas recently, and there was no noted uptick in cases afterwards.This makes the whole C-19 issue look fishy and stupid!
Of course, protecting the vulnerable from harm is important in any epidemic.In the case of Tanzania,it seems likely that the prayers either helped or the pandemic is non exisistent,especially if we take into consideration the Florida and Texas sports fans case.
Believers praying in one of Tanzania's churches to put C-19 away.
Magufulis' approach was best in building the so called ‘ immunity herd.'
The policy overall was probably far better for public health than strict lockdowns, which led to the first recession in a quarter of a century in many African countries, as well as a reducing major killers like malaria, tuberculous (TB) and HIV-Aids.
The virus that leads to Covid-19, SARS-CoV-2, is likely to become endemic, and as herd immunity is reached through natural infection , severe disease and death will become increasingly uncommon.
Multiple studies have shown very limited impact of stricter lockdowns on Covid-19 mortality.
Therefore, one would expect Tanzania, like Sweden, Croatia, Belarus and other ‘non-lockdown’ countries, to have similar overall Covid-19 deaths and epidemic trajectories as comparable lockdown countries in the end.
The vehement criticism of President Magufuli in the media is therefore disappointing and highly ignorant. It does appear that Western journalists find it easier to smear leaders in African countries than European leaders. Sweden's leaders, for instance, have never been labelled 'Covid deniers'.
This is not new, but perhaps it shows how much hypocrisy and prejudice persist in Western society.
Tanzania appears to have done better from a health point of view than most other low-income countries through this last year.One therefore expected it to be praised, instead of being ridiculed.This clearly shows the emptiness of the C-19 agenda.
While millions of Africans have been thrown into hunger and poverty, Tanzania has seen its' GDP rise throughout 2020.
Falls in GDP and general impoverishment are associated with increases in all-cause mortality.This is particularly the case in sub-Saharan Africa, where food security is often a real problem and control of endemic diseases such as malaria, tuberculosis and HIV-Aids is fragile.
It is therefore highly likely that in maintaining a well-functioning economy, he and his government were responsible for greatly reducing mortality. UNICEF estimates that almost a quarter of a million additional child deaths in South Asia in 2020 occured due to responses in Covid-19 there.It is likely that similar tolls will be seen in sub-Saharan Africa but we would expect that Tanzania will now be relatively protected from this.
Let us hope, for Tanzanians’ sake, that this continues with his successor President Samia Suluhu Hassan.
Western media may have had a good laugh at President Magufuli and Tanzanians in general,for thinking they could ‘pray’ away a virus.But rhetoric aside, by refusing to lockdown, and by refusing to divert health resources away from malaria and TB to test people with no symptoms for a virus with a very low fatality rate, Magufuli was following an orthodox pandemic response.He was also orthodox in his approach to human rights. Religious freedom was considered an important human right by most Western journalists only 18 months ago, and fear should not change fundamental human rights! Honest journalists should acknowledge the benefits of Magufuli’s approach, however much it may contradict their current preferred draconian world view.
Ridiculing religious observances and believes that fall outside their experience, and denigrating public health science that they clearly don’t understand, is not good journalism.
It just highlights how ignorant they are.
You can also follow the original text in the following link.
Magufuli’s Covid response saved thousands
Ex-WHO scientist Dr David Bell defends Tanzania's handling of Covid-19 and says President Magufuli saved thousands of lives by refusing to lockdown.
www.newsafrica.net