Cappuccino: Remember Covid?

In late December 2019 and the early weeks of 2020, your writer picked keen interest in the news and a health crisis that was emerging in China. At that time it had no prominent coverage in the media. But what made this one interesting was that activists and few independent voices inside China — including Dr. Li Wenliang, whom we wrote about — were raising unusual alarms.

It later became a global concern when it first reached parts of Southeast Asia and Europe (mostly Italy and Spain) and then started killing hundreds of thousands.

Not for a moment did The Kigalian doubt the severity of SARS-Cov-2, a coronavirus that causes COVID-19, the respiratory illness responsible for the recent pandemic. We knew it would affect African countries at a time when most commentators on the continent were bashing scientists and leaders who were sending signals. We warned our readers of its airborne potential and possible effects on the human brain.

And, perhaps best, we offered the finest advice on how to avoid acquiring viruses — which is to imagine you do have the virus and change your behaviour so that you're not transmitting it.