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By Citizen Reporter

Journalist


Ramaphosa’s address leaves South Africans wary of Covid-19 vaccine

The number of tweets per day related to vaccines have increased by more than 900%, since 1 December 2020.


President Cyril Ramaphosa’s address on Monday evening has heightened the emotions around the Covid-19 vaccine debate and added to the already high levels of negativity.

This is according to an ongoing study by a Gross National Happiness (GNH) team of researchers, in collaboration with Afstereo.

The GNH Index is a real-time measure of the mood of a nation. They construct the index by making use of the sentiment derived from tweets.

The team says the number of tweets per day related to vaccines have increased by more than 900%, since 1 December 2020.

ALSO READ: DA welcomes Ramaphosa’s vaccine update, but accuses govt of ‘lying’

Central to the debate are questions such as “will people be forced to take the vaccine?” and “how will corruption related to the rollout be limited?”.

“From our analyses, it seems that it [the unhappiness] is mainly due to dramatic societal changes, the loss of loved ones, isolation of staying at home, loneliness due to social distancing measures, fear of contracting the virus, financial hardships,” the researchers said.

Compiled by Siyanda Ndlovu

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