Today marks the beginning of the second phase of the Sisonke Protocol vaccine rollout. It is a significant point in the fight against the spread of COVID-19 in South Africa, with frontline healthcare workers now being joined by the elderly in terms of receiving the vaccine. Those who fall under each of those categories are urged to register on the EDVS website in order to book a date and time to receive their vaccine.

Currently 478 733 vaccines have been administered to date, but with more than 3 000 sites cleared to begin inoculating under phase two, hopefully the rate at which vaccines are administered will begin to pick up in the coming weeks.

As we await to see how the National Department of Health (NDoH) handles the next phase of the rollout, there is still the looming threat of a third wave of infections, with the Gauteng Premier announcing that the province was in the midst of one last week Friday.

At the time of writing, there is no word from the NDoH if the third wave is countrywide, or indeed whether another family meeting will be called by President Cyril Ramaphosa over the situation.

For now vigilance is required as 2 585 new cases have been recorded over the past 24 hours, according to the latest NDoH report. It adds that the recovery rate has dropped slightly to 94.4 percent. On top of this, 27 new fatalities have been recorded over the past 24 hours, which pushes the death toll related to COVID-19 in South Africa to 55 210.

The full breakdown of COVID-19 in South Africa is as follows:

As always, in order to stay up to date with the spread of COVID-19 in South Africa and abroad, we advise the following materials and platforms:

• Dr Zweli Mkhize on Twitter
• COVID-19 Connect on WhatsApp – add 0600 123 456 as a contact and say “Hi”.
• World Health Organisation
• SA Coronavirus website
• SA Government
• SA Presidency

[Image – Photo by Maskmedicare Shop on Unsplash]