A study found that COVID-19 coronavirus infection rates to be 70% higher in pregnant people.
Should you get the Covid-19 vaccine if you are pregnant? Well the authors of a new publication in the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology concluded that not only should pregnant people get the Covid-19 vaccine, they “should be broadly prioritized for Covid-19 vaccine allocation in the U.S.” In other words, in the line waiting for the Covid-19 vaccine right now, those who are pregnant should move closer to the front. This conclusion was based on their analysis of data from 35 hospitals and clinic systems in the state of Washington. These systems apparently account for 61% of deliveries in the State each year. That’s deliveries of babies and not of Amazon packages or pineapple pizza by the way. The research team led by Erica M. Lokken, PhD, MS, and Kristina M. Adams Waldorf, MD from the University of Washington identified 240 women who tested positive for the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) via polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests from March 1 to June 30, 2020. This came out to a rate of 13.9 cases for every 1,000 deliveries. Comparing this to the 7.3 per 1,000 rate among all 20 to 39 year old adults in Washington State meant that those pregnant were 70% more likely to have been infected with the Covid-19 coronavirus. Excluding the 45 cases of patients who didn’t have any symptoms when they screened for SARS-CoV2 dropped the rate to 11.3 Covid-19 coronavirus cases per thousand deliveries. That’s still 30% higher than the rate for 20 to 39 year old adults in general. Does this mean that the virus selectively infects people who are pregnant, saying, “show me your pregnancy test and I’ll decide whether to infect you?” Or might your body be less able to fend off infection when you are pregnant? After all, lots of things do change when you are pregnant including potentially your immune defenses. Not necessarily. Just because pregnancy was associated with a higher infection rate in the study doesn’t mean that being pregnant somehow led to infection. Remember correlation does not mean causation. Otherwise the rise in global temperatures over the years could somehow be blamed on the decrease in the number of pirates during the same time and the solution to climate change would be training more pirates. Instead, there may have been other reasons why those pregnant happened to be at greater risk for being exposed to the virus. For example, perhaps pregnancy may have meant on average more visits to health care settings, which during those months could have had more of the virus going around, especially those settings that were not taking proper precautions. Of note, in the study,70.7% of the 240 pregnant women who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 were from racial and ethnic minority groups. So what if persons of color were more likely to have visited health care locations that didn’t have the resources to protect against the spread of the virus? Keep in mind that the virus has to actually reach you in the first place to infect you. That’s why taking recommended precautions can keep the Covid-19 coronavirus away whether you are pregnant or not. One example of a proper precautions is social distancing such as staying at least six feet or one Denzel (because Denzel Washington is about six feet tall) away from others at all times. Another example is washing your hands frequently and thoroughly, making sure that you sing through the first chorus of the Divinyls song, “I Touch Myself,” which is about 20 seconds, while lathering up with soap and water.
