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Nqobile Tshili, Chronicle Reporter
GOVERNMENT has said vaccination hesitancy as well as people letting their guard down on Covid-19 prevention measures could expose the country to the pandemic’s fourth wave.

The country had set the end of December as its target of achieving herd immunity but fewer people are now being vaccinated.

At the peak of the third wave in July, the country was recording over 100 000 citizens getting inoculated against Covid-19 on a daily basis.

Vaccination centres were being overwhelmed by citizens who wanted to vaccinate against Covid-19 and some Bulawayo residents would join queues as early as 4AM.

But after the country emerged from the third wave, the vaccination uptake drastically decreased to between 15 000 and 20 000 per day.

Vaccination centres are no longer experiencing any queues.

The country is targeting to vaccinate 60 percent of population to achieve herd immunity.

So far, over 3,7 million citizens have received their first Covid-19 vaccination jab while 2,8 million have been fully inoculated.

National Covid-19 co-ordinator Dr Agnes Mahomva yesterday bemoaned the flouting of Covid-19 prevention regulations by the citizenry and lack of appetite in the vaccination programme.

“To ensure that the scale up continues to be ramped up you need to understand the challenge and where it is coming from.

One of the challenges is that there is a lot of complacency in our communities,” said Dr Mahomva.

“People seem to think that there is nothing that is happening with Covid-19. They think there is nothing that is going to happen to them. So, they are basically relaxed.”

She said Government continues to conduct campaigns to get the country’s citizens vaccinated.

Dr Mahomva said there is a need for communities to be involved in protecting themselves from the pandemic by getting vaccinated.

She said no one will come to save Zimbabweans from the pandemic except themselves.

Dr Mahomva said the country’s scientists are in the process of conducting genomic sequencing to establish if the country has been affected by the Omicron variant which was detected in South Africa and Botswana among other nations.

She said while some countries are focusing on vaccination boosters, Zimbabwe remains guided by World Health Organisation (WHO) guidelines whose aim is for countries to obtain herd immunity first.

“We remain guided by the WHO guidelines which state that nations should really be prioritising getting vaccination coverage of their populations going up.

That is what we are focusing on and pushing as hard as we can to achieve,” said Dr Mahomva.

Bulawayo City Council health services director Dr Edwin Sibanda said while the country is facing a threat of the fourth wave posed by the Omicron variant, the public should follow existing laid down procedures.

“Transmission of Covid-19 doesn’t change whether its variant Alpha or variant Omega, we have to appreciate that washing of hands, maintaining social distance, wearing of masks and sanitising is what works. It will work for all variants and we have to follow that,” said Dr Sibanda.

He said the city’s vaccination drive is largely targeting teenagers aged between 16 and 17 years of age in schools. — @nqotshili