By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
President Cyril Ramaphosa will address the nation at 8pm on Sunday night on the latest Covid-19 developments.
In a statement on Sunday afternoon, the presidency said that the address would be on “developments in the country’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic”.
“The address follows meetings in recent days of the national coronavirus command council (NCCC), the president’s co-ordinating council (PCC) and cabinet,” the statement said.
The address comes as SA had, by Saturday night, a confirmed tally of 1,512,225 Covid-19 infections countrywide and 49,941 confirmed Covid-19 related fatalities.
President to address the nation on developments in Covid-19 response https://t.co/uCINm5f09l
— Presidency | South Africa ?? (@PresidencyZA) February 28, 2021
Vaccination Rollout
The number of health care workers vaccinated under the Sisonke Protocol is 67 303 as of 6.30 pm 27 February 2021.
Meanwhile the second batch of 80,000 Johnson & Johnson (J&J) Covid-19 vaccine arrived at the OR Tambo International Airport on Saturday Morning.
A South African Airways (SAA) flight left for Belgium to collect the batch on Thursday.
This now pushes the total number of doses received in the first phase of the government’s rollout program to 160,000.
The vaccines will be distributed to different centres country-wide.
“South Africa’s second tranche of Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccines have touched down at OR Tambo Int! It comes as the majority of initial doses received two weeks ago have been administered to healthcare workers, “Mkhize tweeted.
South Africa began its vaccination programme last week with Healthcare workers in the public and private sectors becoming the first in line to receive the jab as part of phase one of the mass rollout of the vaccine.
The country has set aside a budget of R9 Billion towards funding the free Covid-19 vaccination programme in the medium term, with the rollout expected to gather pace in the second half of the year.
This brings the vaccine rollout costs to a total of R10.3 billion for the current year, as an additional R1.3 billion was allocated in the current financial year.