This archive report was first published on 4 July 2020.
On June 18, Burundi's new President Evariste Ndayishimiye made a significant statement, declaring Covid-19 as the country's 'biggest enemy'. This marked a stark contrast to his predecessor Pierre Nkurunziza, who died suddenly last month, weeks before he was due to step down.
Nkurunziza, a man of God, adopted a hear-no-virus-see-no-virus approach, downplaying the dangers of the virus and claiming the Lord was protecting Burundians. Ndayishimiye initially went along with Nkurunziza's line, but it seems he didn't truly believe it.
Meanwhile, in Tanzania, President John Magufuli has long moved on from his stance on Covid-19, opening up the economy and declaring that the Almighty had banished the virus from the republic. Since April 26, Tanzania hasn't released regular Covid-19 data, leaving us to wonder if this issue is truly in God's hands.
As the pandemic raged on, this column reported on some economies that were thinking about how to regain international confidence on Covid-19. Would it be the ones with low infection rates, or the ones that were transparent and had shown technical competence in dealing with the virus?
Our first answer came this week, when the European Union formalised a list of 14 'safe' non-EU countries whose citizens would be permitted into the bloc from July 1. Four African countries made the list: Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, and Rwanda.
The EU's criteria for determining a country's safety include an infection rate equal to or lower than the EU's two-week average, a stable or downward trend, and the country's overall handling of the pandemic, including their healthcare infrastructure, testing capacity, and data reliability.
It makes sense that tourists would want to visit countries that have a reliable healthcare system and transparent data. If you reopen your economy and say tourists can come without quarantine, they will come – but only if they're confident they won't contract the virus.
For the record, by the close of Wednesday, the combined reported confirmed Covid-19 cases for all of the East African Community were 10,384. Algeria had 13,907, more than the whole lot. Morocco too, with 12,956.
Finally, we end in South Sudan, which was suspended from the African Union due to its arrears of $9 million. The country's ambassador to Ethiopia and Permanent Representative to the AU, James Morgan, claimed that the AU didn't send them an invoice and come collecting.
Charles Onyango-Obbo is a journalist, writer, and curator of the 'Wall of Great Africans'.
