Should we be worried about these figures unveiled at the NCC on Friday 22nd October? After all, during this week, there has been 18 deaths and 31 new admissions at the ENT Hospital. In addition, there are 20 cases of Delta variants collected from 28 September to 13 October. On the other hand, the vaccinations are progressing.
137 deaths since 19 March
For the past week, there has been 18 deaths due to Covid-19, namely 6 patients aged under 60 years old, 14 unvaccinated and 4 fully vaccinated, 2 of whom had comorbidities. “Since 19 March, the country has recorded 137 deaths due to Covid,” the Minister announced. In the ENT hospital of the 31 admitted this week, 6 are on artificial respirators and are fully vaccinated, 18 are on oxygen assistance of which 12 are vaccinated, 5 are not vaccinated and 1 is still under study. 11 others have comorbidities and are under observation. “Since 1st October, the New ENT Hospital has admitted 110 patients and released 83. Currently in the different hospital isolation wards, we have 168 admitted for Covid,” said the Minister.
20 cases of Variant Delta in 29 samples
The results of the sequencing of samples collected from September 28 to October 13 are worrying. Out of 29 positive samples sent for sequencing by Thermo Fisher, 16 cases of Delta out of 23 positive samples are local and the 4 out of 6 samples were taken from passengers. The other 9 cases are B11318. According to Minister Jagutpal, Thermo Fischer will not be the only means of identifying variants. “We will soon use Nanopore Sequencing for variant identification. Three WHO experts are currently in Mauritius to train technicians on how to do Nanopore sequencing,” he said.
66% of the population fully vaccinated
The Vaccination campaign, on the other hand, is progressing. 70% of the population has been primo-vaccinated, i.e. 873,817 people, and 824,665 are duly vaccinated, i.e. 66% of the population. For the third dose, 14,707 people have already been inoculated. As for the campaign among students aged 15 to 18 years, “27,909 people have received a first dose of Pfizer vaccine and the administration of the second dose of Pfizer vaccine began yesterday and we have counted 2,485 inoculated” reveals Dr. Jagutpal, adding that “the first dose campaign for students is still ongoing for those who were unable to do so.”
In Rodrigues, 56% are primo vaccinated and 54% are duly vaccinated. The number of positive cases in Rodrigues is 5 and are all imported cases. In Mauritius, PCR test results show 408 local positive cases and 16 cases from incoming passengers. In addition, 203 unvaccinated passengers have been quarantined in hotels since the opening of our borders.
