With the Covid-19 fifth wave looming, vaccination sites remained relatively empty on Tuesday.
Sowetan visited vaccination sites at Bertha Gxowa Hospital in Germiston, Alexandra Community Health Clinic and Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital.
As of May 2, over 18 million people had been fully vaccinated while 2,7 million had received the booster jab.
On Tuesday, the country recorded 3,785 new positive cases up from the 2,650 cases recorded on Monday. The total number of cases in the country stands at 40,186.
When Sowetan arrived at Bertha Gwoxa around 10.30am, there were eight people in the queue.
“I am here to get my second vaccine [jab]. I want to get vaccinated so that I do not get sick,” said one of the people.
Another person said: “I want to get my final Pfizer vaccine. I can see that the cases in Gauteng are increasing every day. I want to protect myself.”
At the Alexandra Community Health Clinic site, there was a sea of empty chairs in the vaccination waiting room with only three people in the queue.
Vaccination site manager of the Charlotte Maxeke facility, Sinah Mahamose, said 30 people came to their site on Tuesday to receive the jab.
Out of the 30, Mahamose said, 21 came for the booster jab, five for their second Pfizer jab and four was their first time taking the vaccine.
Mahamose said people aged 40 and above were the majority of the vaccine recipients on Tuesday. “The oldest person to be vaccinated on Tuesday [Tuesday] is 77 years old. The youngest is 18 years old. We had a lot of people coming for their booster doses,” said Mahamose.
She said people between the ages of 18 and 35 are reluctant to get vaccinated. “Some of them tell us that they are not ready. Some took the first dose but they say they are not ready for the second dose. The others say they are afraid of the needle.
“The only time these young adults come for the jab is if they are forced by circumstances such as getting access to a stadium, music concert or travelling out of the country.
“A vaccination certificate is needed for these activities, so they are forced to take the jab. Some come to take the jab due to workplace rules,” said Mahamose.
She said in January the site recorded 360 vaccinations, 354 in February, 678 in March and 468 in April.
“We are doing very well in terms of the turnout of people coming for the jab. The numbers of vaccinations decreased in April due to the Easter weekend.
“We had people who got the first jab at our site and during the Easter weekend and we told them that since they were going to their homes they can get the second jab there,” she said.
While the department of health said SA could enter the fifth wave earlier than expected, experts said it was officially here.
Prof Mosa Moshabela, vice-chancellor of research and innovation at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, said: “We have entered the fifth wave. We have five new cases per 100,000 on average per day. We have 30 new cases per 100,000 on average per week.
“I am not sure how this wave will be sustained. The wave is not driven by a new variant, so we do not know how big it will be or for how long it will take.”
Moshabela said the rise in infections is caused by the sub-variant of Omicron, low vaccination rate of adults (18+) and behaviour of people, which involves not wearing of masks and being in gatherings that are not properly ventilated.
“We should target getting 70% of adults being vaccinated. This will prevent severe diseases and hospitalisations,” said Moshabela.
He said “mistrust in the government, media and scientists” is behind the low vaccination rate.
“We need more community-based solutions to ensure there is a high vaccination rate instead of expecting people to get the jab at health centres.
“One thing that the politicians can do is door-to-door campaigns and encourage people to get vaccinated, similar to how they do it during the election period,” he said.
Wits University's Prof Shabir Madhi said: “We are in a fifth wave as the positivity rate has been greater, 10% for two consecutive weeks.”
Madhi said the focus should not be on arresting infections but getting elderly people to take multiple doses of the vaccine.
“It is no longer important to be focusing on preventing infections unless we are at a high risk of severe illness. The main issue is preventing hospitalisation and death, which can be optimised to get more people vaccinated and particularly at least three doses in people older than 50 years old… The focus should be vaccinating 70% of those who are older than 50,” said Madhi.
Health department spokesperson Foster Mohale said: “What most concerns us is that out of all people who are hospitalised due to Covid-19, majority of them are not vaccinated, which suggests that if the situation gets worse, unvaccinated people will be more vulnerable,” said Mohale.
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