Booster jab rollout gains momentum as rate of new Covid-19 cases declines

At least 12,200 South Africans have received the Pfizer Covid-19 booster shot since the programme opened up to qualifying citizens at the beginning of January.

Department of health spokesperson Foster Mohale said the 12,200 shots were administered as of Monday.

As of Monday night, 2,409 new Covid-19 cases were recorded with 77 deaths reported.

Monday night's numbers were a sharp decline in new cases compared to recent days marking a 46% change in daily cases.

Speaking on this, Mohale said the drop could be attributed to a number of factors, including South Africans heeding the call to observe Covid-19 safety protocols throughout the pandemic to prevent the resurgence of the pandemic.

“The fact that many people received at least one vaccine dose, continues to contribute to the decline of cases and hospitalisations which give our hard working healthcare workers a break.

"... More than 235,130 Johnson & Johnson booster shots which include Sisonke have been received so far,” he said.

Addressing reports of an alleged new variant detected in India called demicron, a combination of the Delta and omicron variant, Mohale said there was nothing official yet.

“So we consider this as part of misinformation and fake news. Our focus is to encourage the people to continue vaccinating in numbers to reduce the impact of the current variant and future variants since the pandemic is mutating.

“We have enough capacity to reach as many people as possible through our vaccination services. The more people vaccinate, the lower levels of absenteeism at work and schools due to Isolation and quarantine,” Mohale said.

Gauteng accounted for the majority of new cases reported on Monday with 828, followed by KwaZulu-Natal with 497 and the Free State with 102.

According to the department of health, there are currently 8,783 people in hospital as a result of Covid-19.

Of those, 715 are in ICU and 323 are ventilated.