Pregnant, breastfeeding women finally get Covid-19 vaccine nod

The raging third wave of Covid-19 has seen South Africa record the fifth highest number of daily infections in the world – at 26 485 at Saturday evening.

However, the 16 091 infections in Gauteng by Saturday, placed the province eighth on the list of highest number of daily cases on the planet.

Economist Mike Schussler, who crunched the numbers even further, said in a tweet: “For the week to Friday 2nd July, South Africa had 5% of reported Covid cases in the world. Gauteng alone 3%!

“SA population only 0.76% of world total. So 6.5 times SA population share. Gauteng about 0.2% of world pop. So Gauteng had 15 times the Covid case load of world average!”

The latest Covid infections dropped sharply to 16 585, with 8 443 of those being in Gauteng, according to figures released last night by the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD).

However, in the past, it has been frequently said that numbers drop significantly over weekends because of lower rates of testing. The figures which will be released on Tuesday, will give a more reliable indicator of the state of the third wave.

Pregnant, lactating women must get the jab

With the delta variant spreading rapidly, experts have urged pregnant and breastfeeding women to get vaccinations to ensure they are protected to limit the chances of severe outcomes.

The department of health on Saturday announced that pregnant and breastfeeding women who had completed 14 weeks of gestation could be inoculated.

The department urged healthcare workers to discuss the benefits and possible risks of the available vaccines with pregnant and breastfeeding women.

According to president and chief executive of the South African Medical Research Council Professor Glenda Gray, vaccines were important for them.

“Pregnant and lactating women have adverse effects from having Covid-19,” she noted.

Epidemiologist Dr Jo Barnes said the department declaring vaccinations for pregnant and lactating women was a significant development.

According to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention in the US, pregnant women were at an increased risk for severe illness from Covid-19 “when compared with non-pregnant people”, Barnes added.

“Severe illness included illness that required hospitalisation, intensive care, or a ventilator or special equipment to breathe, or illness that results in death.”

Barnes said the report also showed pregnant women with Covid-19 were at increased risk of preterm birth and might be at increased risk of other adverse pregnancy outcomes compared with pregnant women without Covid-19.

Initially, the government’s vaccine programme excluded pregnant and breastfeeding women due to a lack of data from trials.

However, the decision had been overturned.

Peak driven by staying home or shopping?

According to the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) the total number of laboratory-confirmed cases by Saturday totalled 2.05 million and represented a 27.3% increase on the positivity rate.

Gauteng accounted for the majority of new cases (61%), followed by the Western Cape (11%) and Limpopo (7%).

The NICD said there had been 175 Covid-19-related deaths overnight, bringing the number of fatalities to 61 507, and an increase of 557 hospital admissions.

Schussler also Googled statistics about where Gautengers were spending their time.

More time than normal was being spent at “home and grocery and meds shopping. Other retail, eating out, travel and work places have seen less than normal time spent for two weeks before new restrictions”, he said.

“Where does the new Covid peak come from?” Schussler said it seemed restaurants and other retail and travel were not as much to blame as people might have thought.

“[The] new peak is driven from people staying at home or essential shopping.”

reitumetsem@citizen.co.za