SA woman in her 20s dies after testing positive for Covid

A woman in her 20s who tested positive for Covid has died as 2342 new cases were reported today.

This coronavirus article is unlocked and free to read in the interest of community health and safety. Get full digital access to trusted news from The Advertiser and Messenger with our great introductory offer.

A woman in her 20s has died after testing positive to Covid, SA Health reported on Friday.

The woman is one of two people in their 20s that have died with Covid in South Australia since the pandemic began – the other being a man who passed away in March – bringing the number of deaths to 465 since the beginning of the pandemic.

A man in his 90s has also died with Covid.

SA Health reported 2342 new cases of Covid on Friday and the total number of active cases in the state is now 16,798.

There are currently 235 people with Covid in hospital including five people in ICU.

Of those hospitalised, 132 have received three or more vaccine doses, 81 are either unvaccinated or partially vaccinated and 22 have an unknown vaccination status.

South Australia has experienced 542,157 total cases of Covid.

In other news, the Adelaide Cabaret Festival and State Opera South Australia have been forced to cancel the season of How to Kill Your Husband (and other Handy Household Hints) because of a positive Covid case.

The show was meant to run from June 10 to 12.

It comes as South Australians with Covid are being warned to book ahead if they want to get their hands on scant supplies of antiviral medications.

The lifesaving Covid antiviral medication is still not readily available at South Australian chemists, with most people having to wait at least 24 hours to get the pills, pharmacy leaders say.

It also emerged this week that unvaccinated South Australians who have shunned public health advice are being granted priority access to potentially lifesaving Covid antiviral medications.

Oral treatments Paxlovid and Lagevrio, which reduce the risk of serious Covid symptoms, have been provisionally approved by the Therapeutic Goods Administration and can be prescribed to patients.

However, they are currently only available to people at “higher risk of severe disease”.

Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine. Picture: AFP

Meanwhile, an SA scientist has revealed that people who have escaped Covid infection so far, despite exposure as a close contact, should consider yourself lucky.

UniSA biostatistics and epidemiology Professor Adrian Esterman says scientists all over the world are trying to work out why some people catch Covid while others don’t.

Two more contagious strains of the fast-sweeping Omicron coronavirus variant are already in Australia – and are spreading throughout the United States.

Subvariants BA.4 and BA.5 were first reported in South Africa earlier this year but are now gaining traction in America, accounting for 13 per cent of the country’s new Covid-19 cases.