Although declared an end as
a global health emergency, the Coronavirus remains the most prominent
international pandemic challenging the world in the 21st century; it exposed
the unfortunate politicization of a devastating pandemic, resource weakness,
inadequacies of the democratic system of governance, and the failure of the
federal administrative system of the US. This paper argues that, unlike many
African nations, partisan politics, politicization, and resistance to Covid-19
in America contributed to prolonged containment efforts and untold suffering
resulting in over a million deaths from the Coronavirus. Contrary to
expectations, the doom and apocalypse from Covid-19 on the continent did not
happen as expected because most African governments took immediate and
effective preventive containment strategies and applied lessons learned from
previous epidemics to battle and contain the virus outbreak. But most
significantly, their populations cooperated rather than resisted containment
measures, resulting in fewer deaths and economic devastation. In the end,
unlike many African governments, and despite America's technological dominance,
America's political polarization, partisanship, falsification of scientific
information, and cult-like control of the right-wing conservative group
resulted in resistance to Covid-19 response measures and untold human
catastrophe. It is significant to note that while there is ample research on
the United States Covid-19 response and polarization, however, none of these
studies were on a comparative analysis of the US and Africa with regards to
Leadership, Partisanship, Politicization, Resistance, Cooperation, and
Unification.
