Vaccination of teachers and education staff got off to a rocky start in Bloemfontein, Free State, as more people arrived than anticipated, causing overcrowding and fear that a vaccination site could become a super spreader.
Teachers and staff arrived at Gonyane Primary School for vaccination as early as 7am. The number picked up as the morning continued and ended up crowding the entrance of the vaccination site with no social distancing being observed.
Free state health department spokesperson Mondli Mvambi told SABC News that there were 500 people scheduled to be vaccinated at the site on Wednesday.
“Unfortunately, we have experienced more numbers than we have scheduled. We organised two marshals from the Red Cross who are now completely overwhelmed by the number of people here," Mvambi said.
“You must understand that the type of queue marshalling that we have organised is not military style because we did not expect that we would be having people pushing each other. The queue marshals that we have had to be deployed inside because there was also chaos inside just to make sure that the vaccinators are protected,” he told SABC News.
Mvambi said the province had to withdraw some of the vaccinators from two other centres to come and help deal with the number of people who had pitched up at Gonyane Primary School.
“We will make sure that everybody is vaccinated…Our worry is that the people at the gate can get injured because they think they are not going to get vaccinated. This is an indication of over-eagerness for the vaccine because our educators have been experiencing a lot of infections in the schools."
Mvambi said the province has been experiencing a low turnout for the vaccination of people over the age of 60 which started in May.
But, the beginning of the vaccination of teachers and education staff attracted more people than anticipated. About 32,000 workers are to be vaccinated over 10 days in the Free State as part of the national programme for the sector.
Mvambi said the departments of health and of education will meet to better coordinate the number of people visiting the centre and introduce better security to control the flow.
“Whether you are here or elsewhere, personal responsibility must be exercised. You do not go to a congested environment just because you want to be vaccinated…If the situation is not right, pull back because we’ve made assurances that we will be here till the last person is vaccinated,” he said.
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