id	author	title	date	pages	extension	mime	words	sentences	flesch	summary	cache	txt
cord-292629-5kh46tks	Divala, Titus	Africa faces difficult choices in responding to COVID-19	2020-05-12		.txt	text/plain	475	34	53	To flatten the curve, some African governments have imposed stringent public health measures (lockdown) based on physical distancing to reduce transmission. We used Spiegelhalter's approach to compare age-group specific infection fatality ratios from COVID-19 to background (non-COVID-19) mortality risk in Malawi, South Africa, the UK, and India. 3-5 This assumes COVID-19 infection fatality ratios similar to China, but true age-specific casefatality rates might be higher with fragile health systems. We estimate that in the UK, having COVID-19 confers risk of death equivalent to approximately 12 months of background mortality risk, averaged across all age groups. By contrast, in Malawi this risk is equivalent to 4 months of background mortality (appendix). This reflects higher background mortality rates in Malawi, underscoring the fragility of health under normal circumstances. Without a context-specific, ethical approach to physical distancing, unintended harms from stringent lockdown could pose more harm than the direct effects of COVID-19 itself.	./cache/cord-292629-5kh46tks.txt	./txt/cord-292629-5kh46tks.txt