Pan-African evolution of within- and between-country COVID-19 dynamics

Significance We created a strategy for understanding the evolution of the COVID-19 pandemic throughout the African continent. Because high-quality mobility data are challenging to obtain across Africa, the approach provides the ability to distinguish cases arising from within a country or from its neighbors. The results further show how testing capacity and social and health policy contribute to the dynamics of cases, and generate short-term prediction of the evolution of the pandemic on a country-by-country basis. This framework improves the ability to interpret and act upon real-time complex COVID-19 data from the African continent. These findings emphasize that regional efforts to coordinate country-specific strategies in transmission suppression should be a continental priority to control the COVID-19 pandemic in Africa.