Experts laud decision to vaccinate those over 18

Conceding the Covid third wave was not yet over in South Africa, a top medical expert yesterday lauded Cabinet’s decision to approve vaccination of people aged between 18 and 35 years from today.

“I think it is good that government has opened up vaccination to younger age groups,” said Professor Heather Zar of the University of Cape Town’s department of paediatrics and child health at the Red Cross Children’s Hospital.

“We know that the delta variant affects the younger age groups more than the original variant and because it is so highly transmissible, younger people are vulnerable to the spread.

“The more people who are vaccinated and protected against severe disease, the better. The higher our vaccination coverage, the more likely we are to be able to turn the tide on this third wave.”

In what has pointed to an upward trend in Covid cases, the National Institute for Communicable Diseases on Wednesday reported the soaring of nearly 15,000 new cases – a development Zar said showed “variability”.

“There is some variability on the day-to-day reporting of results, depending on data being received,” said Zar.

“For example, on 14 August, there were around 8,000 cases which on the 16th jumped to 13,000 and on the 17th it was down to 5,000. Then on Wednesday, it was up to almost 14,800.

“While I am somewhat worried about the trend – I think it is some normal variability. If we look at areas where the highest cases are – predominantly the Western Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and Eastern Cape, followed by Gauteng – there is a clear ongoing spread, particularly in the Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal.”

She said the third wave was not over, but still ongoing, “reflecting a highly transmissible virus, the delta variant, which is susceptible to a population which is largely unvaccinated.”

Ridwaan Suliman, a senior researcher at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, warned the third wave was “rearing its ugly head – a large increase in confirmed Covid-19 cases again in all provinces – showing an increase in test positivity rate up again, seven days averaging back at 21.7%, after having showed a slow decline for a while”.

Announcing government’s ramping up of its vaccination roll-out plan and welcoming an increase in the acceptance of vaccines, particularly in provinces that had earlier shown hesitancy,

Cabinet said: “As part of increasing the vaccination roll-out programme, Cabinet approved the vaccination of persons aged between 18 years and 35 years from 20 August, 2021.”

– brians@citizen.co.za