The race to inoculate more than 500,000 people in the education sector before the August expiry of the Johnson & Johnson (J&J) vaccines begins on Wednesday.
Gauteng, the Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and the Northern Cape will kick off the programme on Wednesday, while the Western Cape will start on Friday.
As the basic education department will facilitate the registration of recipients, education staff are not required to register on the Covid-19 electronic vaccination data system.
In a circular sent to schools countrywide on Tuesday, the department said each school district will be allocated vaccination sites. Schools are expected to arrange for staff to reach the sites.
Schools will stay open during the next two weeks.
About 582,000 educators, support staff and other officials are expected to receive the first of the 300,000 doses of the J&J vaccines, which arrived in the country earlier in June. An additional 280,000 doses are expected to arrive this week.
The basic education department has set an ambitious target of inoculating employees in the sector over the next 14 days up to a day before the winter holidays begin. Should this target not be met, SA Democratic Teachers Union general secretary Mugwena Maluleke said those who were unable to join the vaccination drive will be able to do so during the winter break.
All teachers and support staff in private and public schools, regardless of age, will receive jabs.
Exclusions include those who have received the flu vaccine within the last 30 days, people who have contracted Covid-19 within the last 30 days and those who have already been vaccinated in the Sisonke programme.
Though participating in the vaccination programme is not mandatory, once schools reopen on July 26 all staff, including those who have been permitted to remain at home due to comorbidities, will be required to return to school regardless of their vaccination status.
Gauteng, which on Tuesday accounted for 67% of 11,093 new infections in the country, according to data from the National Institute of Communicable Diseases (NICD), has increased its vaccination sites to 46 from 25 to accommodate an additional 39,753 personnel in the education sector, bringing the tally of employees to be inoculated to 125,934 after the inclusion of administration staff.
Household cluster outbreaks, increased mobility and the slow pace of vaccinations are driving infections in the province, said Gauteng government spokesperson Thabo Masebe.
By Sunday only 400,000 people in the province had received their first dose of the Pfizer vaccine, indicating a slow pace of vaccination in the country’s economic hub.
“The supply [of vaccines] is not the problem; people are not coming to the vaccination sites,” Masebe said.
The vaccination of Gauteng education personnel comes amid the news of possible tightening of restrictions in the province and the deployment of SA National Defence Force health officials to support the pressured public health facilities.
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