The Health Department’s Deputy Director-General Dr Nicholas Crisp says the number of daily COVID-19 vaccinations in the country has increased again after earlier concerns that it was declining.
On Tuesday, a total of almost 182 000 vaccines were administered in the country bringing the total of people who have received at least one dose to more than 9.7 million.
Of these 4.3 million are considered fully vaccinated after receiving both doses of the Pfizer vaccine or the one-dose Johnson & Johnson jab.
Crisp indicated that there we enough vaccines in the country to start vaccinating people in the 18 to 35 age group sooner than initially announced.
He says, “The good news for us is that things have picked up again. The last couple of days have started to show an upturn with provinces and the private sector has been positive and we are starting to see more vaccinations taking place than there were a week ago. We hope to get an outcome and instructions on what to do with the preparations for that later today (Tuesday) or tomorrow (Wednesday) and we will surely get an announcement on whether there is going to be a change of the date or whether it will remain on the 1st of September. We are ready, no matter what the decision is, we will be ready to implement.”
Young people
He says should the government decide to make the jabs available sooner they have the capacity to begin vaccinations.
The full interview with the Health Department’s Deputy Director-General, Dr Nicholas Crisp:
On Tuesday, Health Minister Dr Joe Phaahla said there’s still a lot to be done to educate people about the importance of COVID-19 vaccinations:
VIDEO: Member of the Ministerial Advisory Committee and the Chair of South African Health Products Regulatory Authority Board, Prof Helen Rees looks at the dos and don’ts before and after COVID-19 vaccination:
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