South Africa’s Covid-19 vaccination rate nosedives

South Africa’s daily Covid-19 vaccination rate plunged this week, indicating that the inoculation drive may be losing steam amid criticism of a lack of information about the shots among more remote and impoverished communities.

On Sept. 20 just 159,542 doses were administered, the lowest amount on a weekday since Aug. 13, when 147,307 vaccinations were given, according to government statistics. That’s short of the government’s yet-to-be attained target of 300,000 doses a day and also the lowest since 18-to-35 year-olds became eligible for the doses on Sept. 1.

Yesterday, South Africa administered 178,685 doses — still lower than typical weekday vaccination rate which had been over 200,000 until Friday, 17 September.

South Africa has vaccinated 11,848,356 individuals, an estimated 29.77% of the adult population. Of these 8,108,520 are fully vaccinated, either receiving a Johnson & Johnson jab or two doses of Pfizer-BioNTech’s vaccine.

A total of 16,358,076 vaccine doses were administered as of 17:00 on 21 September.

The National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) says that the current surge in Covid-19 infections in South Africa seems to be showing signs of a sustained downward trend.

Yesterday, the institute reported that 2,197 new Covid-19 cases were identified in South Africa, representing a 6.1% positivity rate.

According to the National Department of Health, a further 160 Covid-19 related deaths were reported yesterday, bringing total fatalities to 86,376.