Africa’s crisis.
This is the Coronavirus Briefing, an informed guide to the pandemic. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Africa is now in the deadliest stage of its pandemic as the Delta variant sweeps across the continent. Hospitals are filling up, oxygen supplies and medical workers are being stretched thin. Recorded deaths jumped 40 percent last week alone. There is little prospect of relief in sight: Only about 1 percent of Africans have been fully vaccinated, and even the African Union’s goal of vaccinating 20 percent of the continent by the end of this year seems unlikely. Rich nations have bought up most of the world’s doses long into the future, often far more than they could conceivably need. Unable to strike early deals for vaccines, African countries relied on Covax, a global partnership, to deliver free doses to countries that needed them. But hundreds of millions of doses never arrived after India restricted the exports of the AstraZeneca vaccine as it dealt with its own resurgence this year. “The blame squarely lies with the rich countries,” said Dr. Githinji Gitahi, a commissioner with Africa Covid-19 Response, a continental task force. “A vaccine delayed is a vaccine denied.” A month after California’s “grand reopening,” Los Angeles County announced that face masks would once again be required indoors starting Saturday night to get ahead of the surging Delta variant. New coronavirus cases have nearly tripled statewide, and California isn’t an outlier: Every state in the nation has reported increases in the number of cases in recent days. California, which is recording 3,000 new cases a day (a blip compared with the winter peak of 44,000), is actually doing slightly better than the national per capita average. “We’re not where we need to be for the millions at risk of infection here in Los Angeles County, and waiting to do something will be too late, given what we’re seeing now,” said Dr. Muntu Davis, the county’s health officer.
