Zimpapers Logo

In a bid to address increasing vaccine hesitancy, the national coronavirus command council (NCCC) has approved the vaccination of people aged between 18 and 35 from Friday, the cabinet said on Thursday.

This means that this cohort does not have to wait until September 1, which was the initial date to open up registration for them.

“As part of increasing the vaccination rollout programme, cabinet approved the vaccination of persons aged between 18 and 35 from August 20,” the cabinet said.

The cabinet also received a report from the NCCC indicating that over 9-million vaccines have been administered in SA to date, with over 7-milllion people partially vaccinated and over 4-million fully vaccinated.

“Cabinet welcomed the vaccination rollout plan to increase the uptake of vaccines, particularly in provinces that had shown a reduction in the uptake of vaccines.”

The government said scientific evidence confirmed that vaccinated people stand a better chance of surviving from Covid-19 than unvaccinated people.

“Therefore we must all dispel the unfounded and misleading conspiracy theories about the vaccines and choose life by vaccinating.

“Cabinet further approved the keeping of the country under the risk-adjusted alert level 3 of the national lockdown, as advised by the ministerial advisory committee.”

The government is also encouraging all unvaccinated people in SA to get vaccinated, saying vaccines protect people from getting seriously ill from Covid-19 and save lives.

TimesLIVE