#parent | #kids | Nigerian Coronavirus Outbreak Highlights Emerging Threat in Africa: Live Coverage | #coronavirus | #kids. | #children



An outbreak in Nigeria is just one of Africa’s alarming hot spots.

The coronavirus has been relatively slow to take hold in Africa, but blazing hot spots are beginning to emerge on the continent.

In Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, officials say that burials have tripled. In Tanzania, after cases suddenly rose and the U.S. Embassy issued a health alert, the government abruptly stopped releasing its data two weeks ago.

Officially, Kano, with an estimated population of five million, has reported 753 infections and 33 related deaths, but those numbers do not reflect what health workers and residents say they are seeing on the ground.

Kano’s state government, until recently, claimed a spate of unusual deaths was caused not by the coronavirus, but by hypertension, diabetes, meningitis or acute malaria. There is little social distancing, and few people are being tested.

“The leadership is in denial,” said Usman Yusuf, a hematology-oncology professor and the former head of Nigeria’s national health insurance agency. “It’s almost like saying there is no Covid in New York.”

Kano’s location, population and connectivity to the rest of the region mean the consequences of an uncontrolled outbreak could be severe.

Already there are reports of hundreds more people dying what some officials call “mysterious deaths” in Nigeria’s northern states of Jigawa, Yobe, Sokoto and Katsina.

“If Kano falls, the whole of northern Nigeria falls. The whole of Nigeria falls,” Dr. Yusuf said. “It spreads into the whole of West Africa and the whole of Africa.”

Jilin has traced nearly 700 contacts of coronavirus patients for testing and quarantine, while officials in Liaoning Province have found more than 1,000 contacts and about 6,500 people at high risk for infection.

China reported five new confirmed infections on Saturday, three of them locally transmitted in Jilin Province and two from overseas. The country has reported more than 89,000 total cases and 4,634 deaths.

And in southern China, the governments of Hong Kong, Macau and Guangdong Province are discussing the creation of a “travel bubble” that would allow qualified residents to travel around the region without being required to quarantine.

Japan fell into a recession for the first time since 2015, as its already weakened economy was dragged down by the coronavirus’s impact on businesses at home and abroad.

The world’s third-largest economy after the United States and China shrank by an annualized rate of 3.4 percent in the first three months of the year, the country’s government said on Monday.

That makes it the largest economy to officially enter a recession, often defined as two consecutive quarters of negative growth. Other major economies around the world are set to follow as efforts to contain the outbreak ripple around the globe.

Businesses had already been staggering before the coronavirus hit.

Consumer spending dropped after the Japanese government in October increased a tax on consumption to 10 percent from 8 percent, a move that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s administration said would help pay down the national debt — the highest among developed nations — and fund the growing demand for social services as the country’s workers age.

Days later, a typhoon slammed into the country’s main island, inflicting enormous damage and further driving down economic activity.

The situation has only worsened this year. The outbreak crushed Japan’s exports, forced it to postpone the Olympics and then put the country on a soft lockdown as it joined other nations scrambling to stop the coronavirus.