BL Premium reports that the government is proceeding at a brisk pace with its plans to vaccinate teachers and, later, security personnel, as announced earlier this week by President Cyril Ramaphosa.

Details of the plan were outlined by Department of Health technical adviser Dr Aquina Thulare to MPs on Thursday. Thulare said the health and basic education departments were ready to execute the vaccination plans. All educators at public and private schools as well as administrative and support staff regardless of age will be targeted for the vaccination. A total of 499,000 people in the sector will be vaccinated over 10 days at dedicated sites that have already been identified. Provinces had confirmed that they would be able to administer the allocations of Johnson & Johnson vaccines, which would be distributed on 22 June, with vaccination starting immediately thereafter. Thulare said that no scheduling for teachers would be necessary on the department of health’s vaccination registration system. Local planning between the department of health and the department of basic education would link schools to vaccination sites. Thulare also advised that planning for the vaccination of the security cluster was advanced and could proceed after the vaccination of the basic education sector had been completed. This would include the police and members of the SA National Defence Force and correctional services.

• Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Linda Ensor at BusinessLive (paywall access only)
• Read too, Government to vaccinate 300k teachers in 10 days starting next week, at The Citizen

Get other news reports at the SA Labour News home page