Bloomberg reports that according to the head of retailer Shoprite, SA’s private sector must be allowed to secure vaccines on their own to speed-up the slow roll out of Covid-19 shots.

Shoprite “would certainly purchase for our employees to get those front-line people vaccinated as quickly as possible. There are 25 million customers through our stores every month, so one can understand how critical it is for our people to be vaccinated,” said CEO Pieter Engelbrecht. SA, which started the inoculation of health-care workers last month, is likely to miss its target of vaccinating as many as 1.5 million people against the coronavirus by the end of March because sufficient shots are not available. Shoprite employs more than 140,000 people through the operation of 2,892 stores and a network of distribution centers across Africa. “Rather than restrict trade, which causes injury to insult with unemployment and retrenchments,” the focus needed to be on reaching so-called herd immunity to ensure the economy “can get started,” Engelbrecht indicated.

• Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Janice Kew at Moneyweb <https://www.moneyweb.co.za/news/companies-and-deals/shoprite-wants-to-secure-vaccines-on-its-own/>

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