Thursday | February 18, 2021

In a historic first for South Africa (SA), the country began its Covid-19 vaccination drive on Wednesday Feb. 17. There were healthcare workers who got in ovulated alongside President Cyril Ramaphosa and Minister of Health Dr. Zweli Mkhize yesterday.

But Zoliswa Gidi-Dyosi, a nurse, will go down as the very first person to be vaccinanted in SA. She was elated – as anyone would – after the virus-prevention injection and, to an extent, a life saving one was administered on her.

Despite Ramaphosa jokingly saying that he was a bit scared before he got the Johnson & Johnson (J&J) jab, the launch went smoothly after the Oxford-AstraZeneca (AZ) fiasco a few days ago.

A whopping one million of these (AZ) doses of vaccines which arrived Feb. 1 were shelved and inoculation halted due to their lower efficacy rate. J&J came on board pretty fast to plug the hole left by AZ.

Of the nine (9) ordered,J&J delivered 80, 000 doses on Tuesday and administered the next day without any delay. Unlike AZ vaccines which had to be quarantined for 14 day before use and samples tested, J&J conducted some of its clinical trials in South Africa during the second wave of coronavirus fueled by the variant.

After getting his vaccine shot on Wednesday, Dr. Mkhize said there were over 400, 000 healthcare and/or frontline workers who have registered for vaccination so far. The rollout continued in earnest on Thursday with Ramaphosa hinting in parliament that SA must embark on developing its own vaccines.