These are the highlights of this weekly assessment. The country is opening up more to tourists and foreigners with fewer stringent restrictions. With the approval of the recombinant protein vaccine, Nuvaxovid from Novavax by the Vaccination Committee, tourists double vaccinated with Nuvaxovid will be able to enter freely and without quarantine or self-isolation. The Mauritian government is even planning to procure this vaccine to boost the national vaccination campaign. The Vaccination Obligation for the public sector is being tightened with the addition of 10 new locations that are currently inaccessible only to civil servants. New approaches are being considered for the sake of herd immunity.
Rate for the past week
For this Friday, the country records 153 new positive cases. 60 symptomatic cases are currently admitted in the five regional hospitals. Three serious cases have reached the treatment center of the New ENT Hospital, in Vacoas. Of the 35,043 infections since March 2021, 31,648 patients are counted cured. In Rodrigues, 27 new positive cases have been reported in the last 24 hours and the tenth district has 4 new admissions in the treatment centers. Rodrigues has now 244 active cases and 9162 cured cases.
The Ministry of Health has reported 1439 PCR positive cases of which 1394 are local and 45 imported cases. 11 patients have been admitted to the treatment center of the New ENT Hospital. 5 are under artificial respiration, three of which are not vaccinated and two partially. Of the 6 others on oxygen, 5 were unvaccinated and 1 partially. The 5 regional hospitals recorded 196 admissions during the week. The country also recorded 53 people in quarantine.
The progress of vaccination is 1,002,658 for the first dose, 967,015 for the second and 564,226 for the third / booster dose of which 240,072 at Johnson & Johnson, 8,806 at Sinopharm, 2,825 at Astra Zeneca, 233,444 at Pfizer and 68,055 at Moderna. For Rodrigues, 72% of the population received the first dose, 71% the second and 11,023 the third. The adolescent campaign also increased with 74,381 teens vaccinated with Pfizer and 66,839 with the second dose.
A new vaccine approach under discussion
While the hypothesis of a fourth dose, already in administration in several countries, is a current issue in the Vaccination Committee, vaccination is taking a new turn. The same Vaccination Committee has approved that travelers who have received two doses of Nuvaxovid will be exempted from quarantine in Mauritius, and the Ministry of Health is studying the possibility of integrating this vaccine into our national campaign. This possibility has already been presented to the High Level Committee. But this vaccine is not a messenger RNA but a recombinant protein vaccine very close to the Spike protein. So, the effect is of this breakthrough, this vaccine boosts the metabolism to produce more antibodies to fight against the Spike protein. It is new in the treatment of Covid 19 and is similar to the way hepatitis B vaccines work. Unlike Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, there are fewer requirements in its transport and storage. Nuvaxovid can be stored at a temperature of 2 to 8 degrees and this vaccine from the American firm has been proven to be 93% effective, especially against Omicron, the most common variant. Its disadvantage is that it can only be used for the first and second dose campaign.
10 new places inaccessible to civil servants
It is no longer news that from April 4, the vaccination obligation in the public sector takes effect. The 10,300 civil servants who do not have a complete vaccination schedule, either the third dose or without certificates proving that they have not contracted the virus recently, will be banned even from their workplaces. As of Monday, March 14, new amendments to the Consolidated Covid-19 Regulations have been published in the Government Gazette. These new places are the Civil Status Office, the Registrar General Department, the Wastewater Management Authority, the Registrar of Companies, the National Land Transport Authority, post offices, Social Security offices, the National Empowerment Foundation, the Mauritius Revenue Authority and all places under municipalities and district councils.
This ban does not yet apply to members of the public. It is estimated that 60% of the adult population has a complete vaccination schedule, including the 45,600 free civil servants. The government is ‘forcing the hand’, in this case forcing the arm of the population towards the third dose. For the time being, civil servants are the target of this soft ‘vaccination obligation’. According to our information, the next target will be the private sector, starting with the most popular commercial places.
