More than 67,000 health workers vaccinated so far

“The start of our vaccination campaign has gone extremely well. It has shown what we can achieve when we work together as government, the scientific community and the private sector,” said President Cyril Ramaphosa last night.

“The vaccine is our best chance at reaching herd immunity and combatting the pandemic.” Dr Sheri Fanaroff, General Practitioner, Johannesburg. #IChooseVacciNation pic.twitter.com/fSqt5rabMs

— Dr Zweli Mkhize (@DrZweliMkhize) February 27, 2021

To date, all provinces have established vaccination sites and have put in place plans for the expansion of the programme as it gains momentum. From next week, the number of sites that will be available for vaccination will be expanded from 17 to 49 sites.

Of the 49 sites, 32 will be at public hospitals and 17 sites in private hospitals. This includes sites in rural areas to improve access to rural healthcare workers.

Phase two

Once the vaccination of healthcare workers has been completed, phase two of the vaccination roll-out will begin in late April or early May.

Phase two will include the elderly, essential workers, persons living or working in institutional settings and those with comorbidities.

For the second phase, more sites for vaccination in the public and private healthcare sector will be activated.

“We have recently signed an agreement with Johnson & Johnson to secure 11-million doses. Of these doses, 2.8-million doses will be delivered in the second quarter and the rest spread throughout the year.”

The president who last addressed the nation on 1 February, said government has also secured 20 million doses from Pfizer, which will be delivered from the second quarter.

“Additionally, we have secured 12-million vaccine doses from the Covax facility and are in the process of finalising our dose allocation from the African Union. We are in constant contact with various other vaccine manufacturers to ensure that we have the necessary quantities of vaccines when we need them,” he said.