‘Vaccine Celebration’ party in North West raises eyebrows

The country is opening up and event organisers are relishing at the easing of adjusted level 3 restrictions.

One such organiser is Mafu Mahada, owner of Mafu Island Resort in Brits, North West, who is hosting an event on Saturday.

Mafu says the planned festivities are part a celebration for the vaccine roll-out in South Africa and admitted their name of the event was chosen because it was “catchy”.

“We thought ‘vaccine celebration’ was a catchy name because as you know a lot of people are sceptical about the vaccine and there’s a lot of confusion. What we are saying, we are fully behind the government, we believe that the vaccine is going to make a difference and we don’t believe there is anything wrong with it, otherwise the government wouldn’t have procured it.”

He said they have no involvement with the vaccine roll-out or any support from the government.

Mafu Island Resort. Picture: Facebook @MafuIslandResort

With regulations stipulating that outdoor events should not exceed 100 people outdoors and 50 people indoors, Mafu was surprisingly unaware of the numbers remaining unchanged.

When told, Mafu replied: “That is a problem but we will decrease the numbers to 100 people.”

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He concludes that “Vaccine Celebration” was also meant to mark their reopening, after they had to close their doors in December last year because of the rising Covid-19 numbers during the second wave.

Picture: Supplied

The first 1.5 million doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine arrived on Monday. Manufactured by the Serum Institute of India (SII), according to the government’s phased roll-out plan, healthcare workers would be prioritised in the first phase, followed by those with comorbidities and the elderly.

WATCH: SA welcomes first 1.5 million Covid-19 vaccine doses

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