ABSTRACT
On 14 February 2020, Africa confirmed its first COVID-19 case in Egypt. There are only 700 medical physicists employed in Africa, and most of them work in radiotherapy centres. Some medical physicists in the region offered advice and did risk assessments for the safe use of mobile X-ray units in temporary field hospitals. Course practicals and examinations posed a problem in such a teaching setup. Numerous exams were postponed or even cancelled. Major academic disruptions occurred; Kenya’s government took an extreme measure and scrapped the entire 2020 school year due to the pandemic. Clinical medical physics training programmes were also affected. Medical physicists working according to a roster meant that many would just focus on doing the day-to-day work to keep the departments running, and they lacked motivation or capacity to focus on research. Artificial intelligence and machine learning got a big boost in forecasting infections and deaths from the COVID pandemic, with some predicting waves and trends of spread.
