The demographics of those who have been vaccinated indicate that people on medical aid schemes (and likely from higher socio-economic groups) are more likely to have been vaccinated. All this did was exacerbate the inequity that exists in the country when it comes to healthcare. People were asked to register on the electronic vaccination data system, an online portal to manage the COVID-19 vaccine rollout.
#SOUTH AFRICA FIRST LOCKDOWN DATE SERIES#
There were a series of other miscalculations too. Had we vaccinated high risk individuals above the age of 60, as well as others with other comorbidities before the onset of the current resurgence, the number of people being admitted to hospital, and the number of people dying, would have been reduced significantly. This has held back the rapid scaling-up of vaccination. This simply put it at the back of the queue.īut equally important have been the impediments in allowing easy access and inadequate community mobilisation, particularly of the targeted high-risk groups. It only started earnestly engaging with companies in January this year. South Africa didn’t engage early enough with pharmaceutical companies in bilateral discussions to ensure it could get vaccines early. These failures, however, also speak partly to lack of planning. This has been due to the inequitable distribution of vaccines around the world. Countries like South Africa have been unable to gain access to adequate numbers of COVID-19 vaccines. To date, under 5% of South Africans have been vaccinated, including less than one-third of those older than 60 years who were targeted to be vaccinated by the end of June 2021.Ĭonstraints in supply of vaccines have obviously been a challenge. The vaccine programme that’s under way has struggled to meet even the revised targets set by the National Department of Health. We’ve simply failed the people of South Africa by not ensuring that they were timeously vaccinated. To a large extent it depends on whether people adhere to the regulations, particularly avoiding indoor gatherings in poorly ventilated spaces and ensuring they wear face masks when indoors or in crowded spaces. This is because severe disease usually lags behind infections in the community by about two to three weeks.īut, looking at the trajectory of the outbreak in India, we can expect the number of cases to start gradually decreasing after that. We are likely to see many more COVID-19 cases being hospitalised as well as people dying from COVID-19 in the next two to three weeks in Gauteng. Unfortunately, President Cyril Ramaphosa’s announcement on Sunday of stricter lockdown measures is unlikely to stop the trend. In Gauteng the data show that the daily rate of COVID-19 infections in the current wave is two and a half times higher than at the peak of the first or second wave. Gauteng, the country’s economic hub and one of nine provinces, is probably two to three weeks ahead of what will likely be experienced particularly in the Western Cape, Eastern Cape and Kwazulu Natal provinces.
The current resurgence in South Africa differs by province, and even within a particular province. South African scientists who discovered new COVID-19 variant share what they know The previous COVID-19 resurgence, which peaked in January 2021, was dominated by the Beta variant. According to the latest research, it is much more transmissible and possibly also more virulent compared to previous variants. How bad is the situation?īased on the limited sequencing that’s been done, it appears that the Delta variant has emerged as the dominant variant in the latest resurgence. He spoke to The Conversation Africa to shed some light on South Africa’s situation.
Shabir Madhi is the director of the South African Medical Research Council Vaccines and Infectious Diseases Analytics Research Unit and co-founder and co-director of the African Leadership Initiative for Vaccinology Expertise at the University of the Witwatersrand. To ease pressure on the health system and slow the rate of transmission, President Cyril Ramaphosa recently announced tighter lockdown restrictions. But infection rates are expected to rise in other major provinces as well. Gauteng province, the country’s economic hub, where 25% of the population live, is the epicentre. South Africa is in the grip of another resurgence of COVID-19.
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