Just 19 272 healthcare workers have been vaccinated in the past five days, meaning in the past five days, the country has vaccinated only about 3855 people on average per day. South Africa has an ambitious target of vaccination two-thirds of the population before the end of the year.
Media Hack Collectives new data visualisation tool shows that South Africa will need to vaccinate over 150 000 per day to achieve its target. At the current rate, at an average of about 6000 vaccinations per day, it would take the country 18 years, one month and three days to achieve herd immunity.
The Department of Health has previously clarified that the slow rate of the vaccination rollout was due to the fact that the first phase of the rollout was being carried out as part of a study, which has strict protocols that need to be adhered to.
The Health Department’s director-general, Dr Anban Pillay, who spoke earlier this month, said 11.6 million vaccine doses would be rolled out during Phase 2 commencing in May.
He said 2.5 million vaccine doses were reserved for essential workers, 1.1 million for people in congregate settings, five million for people over the age of 60, and eight million for people over 18 with comorbidities. Who has deemed an essential worker had yet to be clearly defined and was a matter that Health Minister Zweli Mkhize and his ministerial advisory committee were vested with.
Meanwhile, Pillay said he expected 1.2 million health workers to be vaccinated by mid-April. As of mid-March, just 157 000 health workers have been vaccinated. South Africa will rollout its mass vaccination programme with Johnson&Johnson and Pfizer vaccines.
In other news – Deputy President David Mabuza blames load shedding on Eskom’s ageing infrastructure
Deputy President David Mabuza says Eskom was dealing with the issue of load shedding after it hit the country again.
He said the problem was that of old power plants, which had to be maintained.
The fact of the matter is our plants are getting old every day. Learn more
Source: IOL
