TimesLIVE reports that Cosatu has called for health authorities to take Covid-19 vaccination to townships, informal areas, taxi ranks, churches, farms and villages as part of scaling up the programme to the required 70% of the adult population by the end of this year.
Responding to President Cyril Ramaphosa's address on Thursday night, in which the president eased Covid-19 restrictions from alert level 2 to alert level 1, the trade union federation’s spokesperson Sizwe Pamla also said: “We remain sceptical about the introduction of vaccine certificates. We need to know how they will be protected from abuse, fraud and corruption and be accessible to people in rural areas or those without access to technology. We cannot afford a situation where people end up buying vaccine certificates and then our entire vaccine programme’s integrity will be questioned. This will defeat the very purpose of persuading and mobilising people to vaccinate.” He also indicated that the federation remained “deeply concerned” with the excessive relaxation of some of the non-pharmaceutical interventions, saying the “massive increase” in numbers for public gatherings was very worrying and might accelerate the anticipated fourth wave in November. Cosatu also expressed disappointment at Ramaphosa’s failure to roll out the unemployment fund (UIF) as a relief to thousands of workers still waiting for the long-delayed relief from alert level 4, which was in March and June, and during unrest in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng in July.
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Sipokazi Fokazi at TimesLIVE
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