Doing our part to pick up the Digital Vibes slack

Not long ago, opponents of the government, willing it to fail, were bleating that South Africa had acquired so few Covid vaccines that it would take up to 17 years to vaccinate the amount of people needed to get “community immunity”.

Now, we are almost drowning in jabs – but struggling to get people vaccinated.

There are a number of reasons for this. Firstly, it is clear that former health minister Dr Zweli Mkhize had things on his mind other than combating the pandemic when his department awarded multimillion communications contracts to his friends.

It is painfully clear now that those contracts have left a huge communication vacuum – into which the small but vociferous anti-vaxx movement have jumped with great alacrity. In the absence of thorough government communication, these people have been sowing lies and doubt.

Despite what they say, there is ample proof – not just from SA, but globally, too – that the vaccines are effective in reducing hospitalisations and deaths from Covid. Also, despite the fact that more than 7 million South Africans have been fully vaccinated, the health authorities have not linked a single death to the vaccines.

We know that the only way for our country to get back to normal is through vaccination. The only way to ease the burden on our health workers – and honour those of them in the Covid frontline who have died that others may live – is through vaccinations.

We will not apologise for that. We will not apologise for putting our country and its people first.

At the same time, we recognise there are those who are genuinely concerned about getting jabbed. So for the next weeks and months we will be bringing you accurate, science-based information to allow you to make up your mind and do the right thing.