Gauteng increases its Covid-19 vaccination sites

The Gauteng health department has added new vaccination sites across the province’s five regions as the government’s mass vaccination roll-out programme for people 60 years and older enters its second week.

This increases the number of public vaccination sites in Gauteng from 28 to 63 sites in the province: Johannesburg (18), Tshwane (14), Ekurhuleni (14), West Rand (10) and Sedibeng (7).

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The department’s spokesperson Kwara Kekana said since Saturday,
40 028 people were vaccinated at old age homes and health facilities across the province.

To date, 164 191 people, including healthcare workers have been vaccinated, with 390 945 registered on the govermnet’s Electronic Vaccination Data System (EVDS) platform.

Nationally, the total number of vaccines administered since last week stood at more than 600 000.

“Phase 1B of the vaccination programme is focusing on healthcare workers, traditional practitioners and funeral parlour employees, while phase two of the programme is prioritising persons who are 60 years and older, as they are more vulnerable to serious illness, hospitalisation and death, in the event, they contract Covid-19,” Kekana said in a statement.

“All residents are urged to help reduce the spread of the pandemic by getting the Covid-19 vaccine when their turn comes. However, the public is urged not to visit the vaccination sites until they have received an SMS advising them to do so.”

Gauteng third wave

Last week, Gauteng Premier David Makhura announced the province was officially in a third wave of the pandemic. This was after the province saw a spike in infections in recent weeks. The Free State is was the first province to declare it was experiencing the third wave.

As of Sunday, the total number of Covid-19 cases in Gauteng stood at 443 846 with 1 107 new cases identified. Recoveries stood at 421 670 with 11,032 related deaths.

According to the breakdown per district, Johannesburg had the highest number of new cases at 404, Ekurhuleni 174, Tshwane 296, Sedibeng 112 and the West Rand 113.

With calls for the government to increase restrictions in a bid to reduce the number of new Covid cases, Makhura said the province cannot afford to close down its economy. However, he said his government was open to further restrictions being imposed.

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