South Africa is now home to over 8.8 million fully vaccinated adults, as President Cyril Ramaphosa leads the inaugural Vooma Vaccination Weekend to push more people to receive the COVID-19 vaccine.
According to the Department of Health, the country on Thursday administered 146 190 vaccines, bringing the total doses to 17 505 358.
In addition, the latest data shows that 92 320 people were fully vaccinated in the past 24 hours.
This means the country now has 8 819 130 adults who have either received the single-shot Johnson & Johnson or the second dose of the Pfizer vaccine since the start of the inoculation programme.
In his address on Thursday night, President Ramaphosa said the country is targeting to vaccinate 70% of the adult population in South Africa by the end of 2021.
“If we reach this target, the Department of Health estimates that we could save up to 20 000 lives,” the President told the nation.
The President said to achieve this goal, government needs to administer an additional 16 million vaccine doses this year, which amounts to around 250 000 first dose vaccinations every single workday of every week until mid-December.
Meanwhile, the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) has reported 1 678 new COVID-19 cases and 101 deaths.
This pushes the total number of laboratory-confirmed cases to 2 902 672 and 87 626 deaths.
The dashboard also shows that hospitalisations due to the virus are sitting at 6 576 after 128 new admissions in the past 24 hours.
The information is based on the 17 649 727 tests conducted in both public and private sectors, 40 680 of which were performed since the last reporting cycle.
Globally, as of 30 September 2021, there have been 233 136 147 confirmed cases of COVID-19, including 4 771 408 deaths, reported to the World Health Organisation. – SAnews.gov.za
