'We would rather die from Covid-19 than from hunger' - Exploring lockdown stringencies in five African countries.

ABSTRACT: Facing COVID-19, African countries were confronted with a dilemma: enacting strict lockdowns to "flatten the curve" could potentially have large effects on food security. Given this catch-22 situation, there was widespread concern that Africa would suffer most from the pandemic. Yet, emerging evidence in early 2021 showed that COVID-19 morbidity remained low, while "biblical famines" have been avoided so far. This paper explores how five African countries maneuvered around the potentially large trade-offs between public health and food security when designing their policy responses to COVID-19 based on a content analysis of 1188 newspaper articles. The findings show that food security concerns played an important role in the public policy debate and influenced the stringency of lockdowns,

SUBMITTER: Birner R 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8436594 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature