South Africa is in a race against time to vaccinate as many people as possible amid signs the virus may be surging again with the approach of winter in the southern hemisphere, when people spend more time indoors, typically allowing for more spread of disease.
It is also a critical front in the fight against the virus in Africa, with South Africa recording 40% of the continent’s Covid-19 deaths.
Since January, South Africa has vaccinated nearly 500,000 of its 1.2 million healthcare workers and now is adding its older citizens to the campaign. In the past two weeks, nearly 200,000 have received their Pfizer jabs with instructions to come back in six weeks to get their second dose.
After a plateau of the disease that lasted a few months, South Africa’s new cases, hospitalisations and deaths are trending up. The seven-day rolling average of daily new cases has risen over the past two weeks from 3.33 per 100,000 people on 12 May to 3.97 per 100,000 on Wednesday,…
