Covid-19: Govt to unveil new dashboard of vaccinated, unvaccinated adults in hospital

• The Department of Health is expected to unveil a dashboard revealing the number of vaccinated and unvaccinated adults in hospital.
• Health Minister Joe Phaahla emphasised that the fourth wave had shown the value of vaccinations.
• The department is on its drive urging the population to take their vaccines.

The government will unveil a new Covid-19 dashboard revealing adults hospitalised, both vaccinated and unvaccinated. 

Health Minister Joe Phaahla reported on Friday that the new dashboard would show the correlation between those who are unvaccinated among hospital admissions, as compared to those who are vaccinated, including those in high care and ICU. 

Phaahla emphasised that the 4th wave was unequivocally showing the value of vaccinations in preventing severe illness and death.

"Hospital admissions were rising in the middle of December when we provided our last update, but have been on a steady decline since the last week of December. Overall, admissions to the hospital over this 4th wave have been much lower than the previous three waves.

"Thus, the term decoupling between the steep rise in infections not accompanied by a similar rise in hospitalisation. A similar pattern has been observed in relation to deaths," Phaahla said.

Gauteng officially exited the 4th wave this week.

Phaahla said the other eight provinces had reached their peaks and were now on a steady decline. 

In the first week of 2022, the country saw a 13.9% reduction in the number of new cases, which was 46 680 compared to the 54 191 during the last week of 2021.

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"In the past week, the Western Cape had the highest number of new cases, followed by KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng. All other provinces accounted for only 11% of cases. There has been a 4.8% reduction in reported deaths over the last 7 days.

"As of 13 January 2022, there has been a 27.4% reduction in new cases compared to seven days prior nationally, and the reduction is in all provinces. There has been a 6.3% reduction in hospitalisation compared to seven days earlier, although provinces such as Mpumalanga, Northern Cape and Western Cape reported an increase in admissions," said Phaahla.

The national recovery rate is 94.4%, and current active cases are at 106 883, a 22.7% reduction over the past 24 hours. 

The positivity rate of tests has gone down from the highest of 25-30% in the last week of December, to 14% yesterday.

"As we are aware, vaccination has been opened for minors 12-17 years, and for this group 1.05 million doses have been administered, with 73 000 receiving second doses after they were approved after the initial one dose.

"We have done well with the 60-plus cohort, with just under 67% vaccinated, with some districts at 75%, the 50-59 years at 62.3%, the 35-49 years group at 50%, and the lowest is the biggest cohort - the 18-34 years at 31.6%," Phaahla said.