At the current pace, scientists have agreed that it will take between 12 and 18 years for government to reach its target of vaccinating 67% of the South African population to achieve Covid-19 herd immunity.
By yesterday, a total of 157 286 people had been inoculated, which works out to 6 049 a day.
Based on Media Hack Collective’s calculations, at the current pace, it will take 18 years, one month and three days to vaccinate the target of 67% of the population, about 40 million people.
Dr Jo Barnes, Stellenbosch University epidemiologist and senior lecturer emeritus in the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, does not think the target can be reached, unless more than 95 000 are vaccinated a day.
She said based on Stats SA’s 2020 population estimates, there were 59.62 million people and for ease of calculation, it could be assumed there were 60 million.
Barnes said Stats SA also estimated that the percentage of people below the age of 15 was 28.6%.
“At present, they are not on the list of persons to be vaccinated until later. So, that leaves us with a total number of persons to be vaccinated at 42.6 million people.
“If they want to vaccinate two-thirds of the people to get herd immunity, that amounts to 28.52 million people to be vaccinated.”
“So, government does not have a hope of reaching its target, even over a number of years. If the present rate of an average of 6 049 per day continues unchanged, it will take 12.92 years to reach that target.
“Note that is for only one dose per person. If a vaccine needing two doses per person to be effective is used, then this calculation gets even worse,” Barnes said.
Dr Glenda Davison, associate professor and head of the biomedical sciences department at Cape Peninsula University of Technology, said she was concerned at the slow pace of vaccinations. She believed this was because SA was only receiving 80 000 Johnson & Johnson vaccines every two weeks.
“I agree with the [Media Hack Collective] calculations. At about 6 000 vaccinations per day it … would be impossible to reach 67% of the population by the end of the year.”
siphom@citizen.co.za
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