Key messages:

Lockdowns impose agonizing costs: up to 2.5% of Africa's GDP is at risk every month while firms surveyed by ECA report to be operating at only 43% and 70% of slum dwellers in another survey report to be skipping meals or eating less as a result of COVID-19.

Lockdowns address severe vulnerabilities: including only 1.8 hospital beds per 1,000 people and spread susceptibilities such as only 34% of Africans having access to household handwashing facilities with soap and water.

Contact tracing and reopening, such as the Taiwan model, may be available to some African countries that have contained the virus•Gradual segmented reopening may be needed in other countries

Further suppression may be required where the virus is still spreading•Active learning and data collection can help policymakers ascertain risks as they look to ease lockdowns and towards a 'new normal'

Take advantage of being behind the curve: learn from other countries and their experiments in reopening

Use "extra time" afforded by lockdowns to rapidly put in place testing, treatment systems and carefully design lockdown exit strategies