The low rate of coronavirus infections, hospitalizations and deaths in West and Central Africa is the focus of a debate that has divided scientists on the continent and beyond. If Covid has in fact done less damage here, why is that? The answers "are relevant not just to us, but have implications for the greater public good," said Austin Demby, Sierra Leone's health minister. The assertion that Covid isn't as big a threat in Africa has sparked debate about whether the African Union's push to vaccinate 70 percent of Africans against the virus this year is the best use of health care resources. In the first months of the pandemic, there was fear that Covid might eviscerate Africa, tearing through countries with health systems as weak as Sierra Leone's, where there are just three doctors for every 100,000 people. New research shows there is no longer any question of whether Covid has spread widely in Africa. It has. Studies that tested blood samples for antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 ... show that about two-thirds of the population in most sub-Saharan countries do indeed have those antibodies. Since only 14 percent of the population has received any kind of Covid vaccination, the antibodies are overwhelmingly from infection. A new W.H.O.-led analysis ... found that 65 percent of Africans had been infected. A research project at Njala University in Sierra Leone has found that 78 percent of people have antibodies for this coronavirus. Yet Sierra Leone has reported only 125 Covid deaths since the start of the pandemic.