In the absence of a cure or a vaccine, countries have to rely on a suite of nonpharmaceutical interventions that include: 1) testing, contact tracing, isolation and treatment, 2) hand and cough hygiene, and 3) a range of physical distancing measures (1). This brief reviews the health and socio-economic effects of physical distancing restrictions in Africa and provides recommendations on how to mitigate them. The method adopted to develop the brief was a rapid (unsystematic) review of available literature as well as the team’s expert knowledge, with a caveat that, understandably, there is very little peer-reviewed literature available.