The pandemic situation around the world is chaotic, with China facing the dilemma of a new general containment. Mauritius has once again been classified as a high-risk country by the US CDC, despite a sharp decline in cases on Tuesday. We have two deaths from the New ENT Hospital and 18% of civil servants will be banned from work as of 04 April.
Deaths and falling rates
The New ENT Hospital reported 2 deaths on Tuesday. Both patients had multiple comorbidities. The 59-year-old woman, resident of Surinam, had been vaccinated with the single dose of Johnson & Johnson since July 2021 and the 83-year-old man, residing Beau Bassin, was unvaccinated.
Mauritius had 70 new positive cases on 14 March as compared to 175 on Monday 13 March, with a decrease of 105 cases. And in terms of admissions, 56 symptomatic cases, including 4 serious cases, were admitted to the New ENT Hospital, compared to 35 on Monday. Vaccination is on the rise, with 1,002,458 people vaccinated, 966,049 people vaccinated with two doses and 533,484 people vaccinated with the third/booster dose.
18% of civil servants banned from work as of 04 April
Being vaccinated with the third dose has gained colossal importance. The 18% of civil servants can testify to this. These 10,300 civil servants, with no complete vaccination status, will be banned from their workplaces and other public places as of April 4 following the implementation of the new Consolidated COVID-19 (Amendment No. 5) Regulations. To date, approximately 82% of civil servants have been inoculated with the third dose, or 46,500. The rest will have to get their booster doses before that date or produce a negative result of a weekly PCR test or else, they might be asked to take leave for this reason, which will not be covered or might be deducted from their annual leaves. Radha Krishna Sadien, President of the State and Other Employees Federation, describes this vaccine imposition and government process as “unfair and too much”!
Mauritius again classified as “level 4: very high”
The decline of cases is not in our favour and the fluctuation of cases recorded over the days has worked against us, as well as the indicators of the World Health Organization (WHO), which shows an increase of 189% in weekly cases. As such, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) assigns this “level 4: very high“, when the country records more than 500 positive cases per 100,000 inhabitants over 28 days. The CDC advised “Avoid travel to Mauritius. If you must travel to Mauritius, make sure you are vaccinated and have updated your COVID-19 vaccines before travel. Mauritius is on a list of 125 countries classified at level 4 for the month of March.”
China: General lockdown looms
China is in the midst of an epidemic resurgence. On Tuesday 14 March via a press release made public by AFP, China announced 5,280 new cases and a partial containment of 13 provinces only, including Wuhan, considered the cradle of Covid 19, as well as the technological metropolis of Shenzhen (south), at the doors of Hong Kong. The country has 30 million inhabitants under containment to date. Officially, the toll since the beginning of the epidemic is around 120,000 infected and 4,636 dead. Containment means the cessation of activities of jobs performed only in person, the main supplier of Apple, Foxconn in the megalopolis with 17 million inhabitants is part of it. This confinement is causing major economic disruption, causing Hong Kong to fall by 6% in the stock market and increasing the unemployment rate in China’s urban areas in the first two months of 2022 from 5.1% in December to 5.5% at the end of February. Even the province of Jilin on the border with North Korea, which has long been safe from the virus, has seen 3,000 new cases in the last 24 hours. With this new wave, intra-China airlines have been disrupted.
