BusinessLive reports that Cosatu has upped the ante in its demands for the ramping up of the government's Covid-19 vaccination rollout, which it says is proceeding too slowly.

During an engagement that health minister Dr Zweli Mkhize held with stakeholders, including labour unions, on Friday on the government’s vaccination rollout programme, the labour federation described the slow vaccination rollout as being akin to “building an aeroplane while in mid-flight”. The national vaccination drive will be the biggest in SA’s history, and aims to inoculate 40-million adults to reach herd immunity. However, it has yet to get fully under way as commercial stocks secured from vaccine manufacturers have yet to be delivered. During the virtual briefing Mkhize told union leaders that in the past three weeks there had been “a bit of a lull” regarding information on the vaccination programme as they were still in negotiations with vaccine manufacturing companies. “Everything was fluid,” he said, adding that it had taken a while to secure all the vaccines from the manufacturers. Cosatu parliamentary co-ordinator Matthew Parks told Mkhize that SA could not afford to fail in its rollout plan, and stressed that labour was concerned that “we have fallen far behind other countries”. Pat Mphela of the National Council of Trade Unions (Nactu) suggested that unemployed doctors could be used, especially in rural areas, to ramp up the vaccination drive, while Zimisele Nanto of the National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union (Nehawu) called for more focus to be put on provinces where there had been complaints regarding the vaccination drive.

• Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Luyolo Mkentane at BusinessLive

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