SA on tenterhooks as Ramaphosa meets with coronavirus council

With a looming third wave, another family meeting is on the cards as President Cyril Ramaphosa chairs the National Coronavirus Command Council today amid growing calls for an address on the country’s latest Covid-19 developments.

Although the National Liquor Traders Council and the Liquor Traders Association of South Africa coalition pleaded to be consulted over any future lockdowns which may affect them, experts have advised that now might be the time for South Africa to up its vaccination game.

The liquor industry also wants to ensure any decisions impacting alcohol prohibitions are guided by scientific evidence.

According to acting deputy vice-chancellor of research and innovation at the University of KwaZulu-Natal Prof Mosa Moshabela, SA can now increase the daily administered doses to more than 60 000 every day in the last week of May.

The department of health recorded a total of 167 318 vaccinated in phase two with the first dose of Pfizer vaccine as of yesterday. Moshabela said that given the available doses, vaccinations can eventually step up to at least 120 000 every day from next week as vaccine delivery from Pfizer had doubled.

“So far, we have witnessed the first week of the Pfizer roll-out by the government and roughly speaking distributed 10 000, 30 000, 40 000, 40 000 and 45 000 doses every day from Monday to Friday,” Moshabela said.

“They have sustained an increase on a daily basis as new sites were added and the roll-out starts to gain speed.

“We expect more sites to be introduced this week and this should increase the capacity to vaccinate more people even further.”

Moshabela said the country had already received a million doses of Pfizer and if they were all used, more than five times the number currently would be vaccinated.

“It’s therefore reasonable that we can reach at least 60 000 people daily in this final week of May.

“While we expect the vaccine delivery from Pfizer to double next month, we can then double our numbers,” he added.

Moshabela said the authorities had a problem in reaching healthcare workers, which explained why the process of vaccinating citizens was catching up to the healthcare workers.

“While some of them were waiting for the government rollout, some were still hesitant,” Moshabela said.

“More than anything, it is important to make access to vaccines really easy for healthcare workers. But we should not wait for those results before we vaccinate all health workers.”

Meanwhile, the co-principal lead investigator on the Sisonke trial, Prof Glenda Gray, said although authorities can increase the daily jabs, it can only get to those levels once the country has acquired enough doses.

Gray also said the electronic vaccination data system (EVDS) was adjusting to incorporate both healthcare workers and those over 60 years old.

As the mass vaccination roll out programme enters its second week, the Gauteng and Western Cape departments of health have added new vaccination sites to ensure that more people who are 60 years and older can get vaccinated.

This has seen an increase of public vaccination sites in Gauteng from 28 to 63 sites across the five regions of the province: Joburg (18), Tshwane (14), Ekurhuleni (14), West Rand (10) and Sedibeng (7), with 53 Covid-19 vaccine sites operational in the Western Cape.

According to premier Alan Winde, the Western Cape department of health wants to bring online 23 more public vaccination sites, bringing the total of public vaccination sites to 42.

“The private sector will have 11 sites operational as of Monday, with Mediclinic bringing online four additional sites as of yesterday,” he added.

All provinces who have requested and have the ability to host EVDS have been given the rights, said department of health spokesperson Popo Maja, without saying which provinces.

“The too ‘short notice and sites being too far’, happened over two days,” Maja said. “That was during a transition from Sisonke to the planned national vaccination campaign.”

reitumetsem@citizen.co.za