CAPE TOWN – South Africa launched a new vaccination campaign against Covid-19 on Friday and will seek to dose 500,000 people over two days in a bid to revive a flagging campaign that is causing hesitation and complacency in the most hard hit on the continent.
The campaign runs until Saturday and marks the first time South Africa has offered vaccines on a large scale over the weekend.
The government has urged anyone over the age of 18 who has not been vaccinated to come for a shot at hospitals, town centers and mobile clinics across the country, and in an attempt to encourage them has given up. the requirement that they book in advance for an appointment have to. People can now register at the vaccination centre.
President Cyril Ramaphosa watched people being vaccinated at a parish hall in Katlehong, just outside Johannesburg, and congratulated and thanked those queuing to be vaccinated. They clapped in response.
“We are here to speed up the vaccination campaign because when we have vaccinated more people, we can say now that we can open up (the country) more and more,” Ramaphosa said.
South Africa has 15% of its 60 million people fully vaccinated, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. But it fell short of targets set earlier in the year, and Ramaphosa said the country now needed to vaccinate 250,000 people a day to meet a new goal of fully vaccinating 70% of the adult population by the end of the year. end of the year.
The current two-day vaccination campaign will be a first test of this new target.
Ramaphosa is trying to get people to get vaccinated by linking vaccination rates to a return to normal life in South Africa, which has been on varying levels of lockdown since March 2020.
He suggested people will be allowed to attend sporting events, music concerts and other cultural events as prices rise. People have been banned from attending for more than a year and a half, while restrictions on attending social gatherings are still in place and a nighttime curfew remains in effect.
Ramaphosa announced on Thursday that the recent wave of infections in South Africa was officially over and the country was returning to the lowest level of restrictions. But the good news was short-lived when he said in the same live TV speech that vaccination rates in Africa’s most developed economy were “far too slow”.
While South Africa’s vaccine rollout was initially hampered by a shortage of doses caused by hoarding by wealthier countries, it began to face the challenge of hesitation and complacency among its people.
Health Secretary Joe Phaahla, during a visit to Soweto Municipality last month, said the country has enough vaccines so far.
“All we need are your arms,” he added.
More than 87,000 people have died from Covid-19 in South Africa, by far the most in Africa and more than 40% of all reported deaths on the continent of 1.3 billion.
“It’s important (to get vaccinated) because obviously people are dying,” said Monwabisi Mbiyo of Katlehong, who received an injection on Friday at a mobile clinic in the back of a van. “I had to make a plan to get vaccinated too.”
