Why youth not a vaccine priority
YOUNG people who frequent clubs, bars and sports stadiums are more likely than people in old-age homes to spread Covid-19 so should receive the vaccine after health-care workers.
This was the suggestion of Covid19 Ad Hoc committee member Peter Marais (FF Plus) during a briefing on vaccine planning and rollout strategies from the provincial health department.
“I am struck by the order in which people will be vaccinated.
“I see the department has put health-care workers first, followed by old-age homes, prisoners, then those over 60, comorbidities, and then those over 16.
“Who are the major spreaders of the virus? It is certainly not those in old-age homes. It is those who go to watch soccer, clubs and dance until morning. Young people. They are the spreaders, and if you want to contain the spread, they should be getting the vaccine first,” Marais said.
He said Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma should issue a regulation that made attendance of clubs, bars, restaurants and sports stadiums conditional on having been inoculated for Covid-19.
Health MEC Nomafrench Mbombo said: “We are targeting older persons even though the youth are more likely to be spreaders of the virus because they are more likely to have comorbidities, and when these illnesses such as diabetes are paired with Covid-19, we have seen they can lead to the filling up of critical-care hospital beds and deaths of both patients and health-care workers.
“Further prioritisation will take place, taking into account: individual vulnerability by age; Individual vulnerability due to comorbidities; risk of exposure, which means looking at patient-facing versus non-patient-facing staff as well as whether they work in critical care, Covid-19 wards, etc.”
Provincial Head of health Dr Keith Cloete said: “The success of this mass vaccination programme is going to require each one of us to play our role in whatever way possible, both as health workers at the workplace as well as ambassadors within our communities, to encourage our people to vaccinate.
“Perhaps the most important lesson to be learnt from the previous two waves of Covid-19 is the need to adapt policies and strategies to ensure they are rapidly flexible and appropriate to the stage of the wave,” he said.