Response: Vaccine for All in South Africa By Fr Peter-John Pearson
On 1st February, in an address to the nation, President Ramaphosa gave an update on the procurement of COVID-19 vaccines. This included the 1 million doses that had arrived on that day from India, with a further 500 000 due in late February, and a further 2 million due in March from the global COVAX facility. He gave details of other procurements and underlined that this was aimed at securing population or herd immunity. The President explained: “This is when enough of the population is immune to the virus to provide indirect protection to those who are not immune. This should bring the spread of the virus under control. Our scientists estimate that we will likely reach herd immunity once around 67% of our people are immune. This amounts to around 40 million people in South Africa.”