Covid hitting Pretoria hard, the NICD says

THE government has continued to urge South Africans to vaccinate against Covid-19 as recent statistics revealed that more than 80% of patients currently admitted to hospitals in Pretoria were unvaccinated.

The National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) reported that Covid-19 cases, including those of the new Omicron variant, were highest in Gauteng, and Pretoria in particular.

“Most of our daily increases at this stage are from Gauteng, about 81%. There has been a tremendous increase in the past 10 to 14 days,” said Dr Michelle Groome, head of the division of public health surveillance and response at the NICD.

Dr Waasila Jassat, also of the NICD, said that unvaccinated patients suffered more severe symptoms than vaccinated ones, and were most likely to face hospitalisation if infected by the new Covid-19 variant. She reported that 87% of all admissions in Pretoria were unvaccinated patients.

Professor Salim Abdool Karim said they were quite amazed at how fast the number of infections was rising.

“We expected and prepared for a new variant as far back as in September. The government then invested in building capacity to do genomic frequency, and this early evidence has given us the best fighting chance against this new variant,” he said.

Abdool Karim said while there was still a lack of evidence on whether current vaccines were effective against the new variant, that evidence should present itself over the next few weeks.

“But, we do expect that vaccines should hold well against the hospitalisation of those who are infected.”

He said the biggest challenge would be preventing superspreader events.

The scientists and Department of Health urged those who were already vaccinated to motivate others to vaccinate.

While more than 16.5 million in SA were fully vaccinated, the department’s Dr Nicholas Crisp said many more remained unvaccinated.

Research has also shown that most patients are presenting similar symptoms to other Covid-19 variants. However, in particular, concerns have been raised about the rise of infections in young children and babies.

Scientists and experts who presented at the briefing said the Department of Health may have to focus on the preparedness of paediatric hospital beds in this fourth wave.