*Two Cents* - These "Africa is doing great with COVID" takes are as problematic as the "Africa is hopeless in the face of this crisis" takes. They lack nuance, downplay the complexity of the situation, and most importantly still operate within the Western Gaze.

Hopeless Continent-Africa Rising, Afro-optimism-Afro-pessimism...two sides of the same coin - equally useless takes.

It's like when people post pics of skyscrapers in Nairobi in response to Westerners posting pics of slums. Like yeah...but the slums still exist.

Every day I read about policies, civil society engagement, innovative solutions that are incredibly encouraging, but one simultaneously gets exposed to as many disappointments every day - incumbents using this crisis for authoritarian means, food insecurity, policy fragmentation

Sometimes the "Africa is doing great" takes tend to deliberately avoid talking about certain contexts/countries. (Since I'm used to the DRC being overlooked as part of "Africa Rising", I'm used to these patterns of deliberate omission - are countries that struggle "unafrican"? ).

Also, do we think that all the structural issues and biases associated with Western reporting on Africa will have somehow disappeared when it comes to COVID? I'm all for criticising the shortcomings and biases of Western reporting on Africa - it's critical.

But...This entire back-and-forth "Africa needs help" vs. "No! Africa can teach you lessons!" is tiring, and other than benefiting a few pundits on both sides of the debate - are we deriving any value from it?