"If you look at [the] total number of cases of pregnant women with COVID -19 from January 2020 to August 2021, there have been about 110,000 cases, about 19,000 hospitalisations and 131 deaths", Fauci told reporters at a White House pandemic task-force briefing.
In contrast, data from 35,000 pregnant vaccine recipients who participated in daily health check-ups with the cellphone-based V-safe system, "there were no obvious safety signals among pregnant women" who received the two-jab Pfizer or Moderna vaccines, Fauci said.
Slides accompanying Fauci's speech showed 109,773 pregnant women contracting COVID-19 from 22 January 2020 to 23 August 2021, of which 18,639 (17 percent) were hospitalised. By comparison, data on a CDC website shows hospitalisation rates for all people aged 18-49 of about 6 percent.
Looking at immune responses for pregnant and lactating woman, vaccine benefits include potent antibody and T-cell responses that protect against a number of COVID-19 variants, while also protecting newborns through antibodies passed to the infants in breast milk, Fauci said.