President Cyril Ramaphosa has called on people to continue fighting against vaccine hesitancy as government ramps up the vaccination programme.
The government has administered more than 12 million doses of vaccines since the rollout began.
Health Minister Joe Phaahla wants 40 million people to be vaccinated by the end of the year.
In his address to the NEC lekgotla, Ramaphosa said they must continue to fight vaccine hesitancy.
“We must combat misinformation and conspiracy theories that contribute to vaccine hesitancy and put people’s lives at risk. The message must be that vaccines are safe, effective and protect people against severe illness and death.
If we do not succeed in vaccinating sufficient numbers of people, this would allow space for the virus to mutate and develop further resistant variants. Let us, therefore, spread the message about the importance of vaccination consistently and more widely,” said Ramaphosa.
He said Covid-19 had caused enormous damage to the economy.
The government was putting measures in place to contain the spread of the virus. In addition, it wants to revive the economy as some of the businesses were affected during the lockdown.
He added that people should still use non-pharmaceutical interventions to protect themselves against Covid-19. But vaccines were an important measure in dealing with the virus.
Ramaphosa has been calling for 300 000 people to be vaccinated a day in order to reach herd immunity by the end of the year.
Political Bureau