It will take a long time before America can again strut on the world stage and lecture about the values of its democracy, poking its finger in the eye of every authoritarian or dictatorial government it has the desire to show up. A former president, no less, is going to use every occasion to tell the world that the 2020 election was rigged.
In the October issue of Nile Journal, I stuck my neck out and predicted that President Trump would not be re-elected. My unstated expectation was that Trump would lose decisively. Unfortunately, that was not the case; it was a nail biter.
To say that the COVID-19 pandemic has a profound impact on science and technology in the world is a gross understatement. The challenges posed have stimulated many scientific and technological developments across the globe, some of which are re-purposing of old technologies whereas others are brand new. The recent announcements of COVID-19 vaccines are examples of such speedy accomplishment, but much more still needs to be done.
A great piece of news was announced last month by the World Health Organization that wild type polio has been wiped out in Africa, thanks to a vaccine. However, it still remains in some isolated parts of Pakistan and Afghanistan where public health officials fight the polio virus against inbred conservative peoples, some of whom are prepared to kill the health workers on the mistaken belief that they are the ones spreading the disease.
When coronavirus (COVID-19) first appeared, Africans expressed variable opinions about its origin, purpose, diagnosis, treatment, and prevention. Some of the opinions, speculations, theories, and beliefs were obviously false, misleading, truthful, or indeterminate. We are now 10 months into the COVID-19 pandemic, though the situation is constantly changing, it is time to assess where some of these views about the pandemic stand today.