The Geography of the COVID-19 Outbreak in Namibia

Introduction

COVID-19 is a newly discovered infectious disease, and it spreads primarily through droplets of saliva or discharge from the nose when an infected person coughs or sneezes (World Health Organisation [WHO], 2021). COVID-19 was first confirmed in China (Wuhan city), and as a result of different forms of tourism, it spread to the rest of the world, including Namibia (WHO, 2020). Spatial analysis of COVID-19 spread is an important tool for public health management, as a Geographic Information System (GIS) platform can support the entire process of infectious disease surveillance, preparedness and response (Fortaleza, Guimarães, Catão, Ferreira, Berg de Almeida, Vilches & Pugliesi, 2021; Boulos & Geraghty, 2020). For example, GIS was applied to better understand population movements out of Wuhan before the city’s lockdown (Boulos & Geraghty, 2020). This was accomplished by looking at travellers’ volumes and destinations across China and the world, and predicting the potential spread of COVID-19 from its epicentre in Wuhan. The latter conducted study was a little bit late as of March 2020, global air transport had already carried the virus to all continents, as COVID-19 was present in 146 countries (Gössling, Scott & Hall, 2021). Therefore, tourist entry points can significantly contribute to the spread of COVID-19. For instance, in Malawi, of the cases recorded on the 14^th of June 2020, 97 were locally transmitted while 443 were imported (United Nations Development Programme Malawi [UNDPM], 2020, p. 7).

The number of COVID-19 cases, number of deaths, and growth rate of recorded infections are positively associated with net migration rate and number of tourists as proxies of infection pressure (Skόrka, Grzywacz, Moroń & Lenda, 2020, p. 1). The number of COVID-19 cases is negatively associated with Gross Domestic Product (GDP) or economic growth (Skόrka et al., 2020, p. 1). Since tourism is one of the major contributors to Namibia’s GDP, the Tourism Revival Initiative (TRI) was introduced in Namibia after the country’s lockdown period (during October 2020) to allow tourists entry into Namibia as well as the reopening of Hosea Kutako International Airport (World Health Organisation Namibia [WHON], 2020). TRI led to the finalisation of the training of staff at Namibia tourist points of entry and procured gadgets for data capturing and reporting. The Hosea Kutako Airport (the common Namibia point of entry for most of the tourists from all over the world) was visited to assess the readiness for receiving and departing travellers in line with COVID-19 preventative measures (WHON, 2020). Although measures were implemented to combat COVID-19 as a result of national, international tourism, and community transmissions (MHSS, 2020), COVID-19 infections were increasing in Namibia, with 1,721 new infections reported on average each day (Reuters, 2021). There has been a total of 91,208 infections and 1,556 coronavirus-related deaths reported in the country with about 2.5 million people as of 29 June 2021. Tourist entry points were identified as major players in COVID-19 transmission, as a result: