By Tatenda Mujeyi
South Africa has eased it’s Lockdown measures to a 4 hour curfew and procured over 20 million vaccine doses the South African President C Ramaphosa announced yesterday.
Ramaphosa announced in a televised report that returning to level 1 lockdown mearnt that restriction on economic activity was cancelled with hope to retain employment.
“The return to Alert Level 1 means that most of the remaining restrictions on economic activity have been removed. We expect this to lead to higher consumption spending, bolstered by the steady recovery in employment.”
The South African President informed his nation that over 30million vaccines had been solicitade through private agreements with Johnson and Johnson and Pfitzer..
“We have recently signed an agreement with Johnson & Johnson to secure 11 million doses. Of these doses, 2.8 million doses will be delivered in the second quarter and the rest spread throughout the year. We have also secured 20 million doses from Pfizer, which will be delivered from the second quarter.”
The Country has also been guaranteed 12 million vaccine doses from the African Union COVAX facility.
Additionally, we have secured 12 million vaccine doses from the COVAX facility and are in the process of finalising our dose allocation from the African Union.
The country’s provincially accessible vaccination program which commenced 11 days ago is likely to realize capacity increase of over 280% increase next week a to 49 sites t o complete phase one of the program.
All provinces have established vaccination sites and have put in place plans for the expansion of the programme as it gains momentum.
The number of sites that will be available for vaccination will be expanded next week from 17 sites to 49 sites. Of the 49 sites, 32 will be at public hospitals and 17 sites in private hospitals.
The country will engage in phase 2 vaccination in late April or Early May focusing on the elderly, institutional set-up workers iinhabitants among other key populations.
Once the vaccination of healthcare workers has been completed, we will begin with phase two of the vaccine roll-out in late April or early May.Phase two will include the elderly, essential workers, persons living or working in institutional settings and those with co-morbidities.
The South African President’s address comes as Zimbabwe awaits the Country’s lockdown measures expected from the country’s President today despite large gaps of knowledge already existing as Zimbabwe has only adopted the Sinopharm version of Vaccines.
Tatenda Mujeyi writes in his own capacity follow him @ politicoinfo email bettermentdepository@gmail.com
