Faizel Patel – 18/02/2021
University of Johannesburg Professor Kate Alexander says only about 67% of South Africans want to be inoculated with the COVID-19 vaccine.
This comes after the Human Science Research Council, held a seminar on the findings and analysis from a COVID Democracy Survey on Wednesday, when President Cyril Ramaphosa and Health Minister Zweli Mkhize received the jab for the Johnson and Johnson vaccine.
While South Africans are generally relieved that government has embarked on the rollout of the Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccine programme, not everyone wants to get inoculated.
Speaking to Radio Islam on Thursday, Alexander says the survey is broadly representative of the national population.
“We undertook the survey online and then we have to weight it. We weighted it by three variables: race, age and education. That gives us an approximate figure for the total population. So the numbers are just not for the survey itself, they are based upon the sample after the weighting.”
Alexander says the percentage of South Africans willing to be vaccinated with the COVID-19 vaccine is not good enough for herd immunity.
“Sixty-seven percent is the same number that is often given for herd immunity, population immunity. Bur we have to take into account the full population for this. The survey is just from adults.”
Alexander says while the survey also shows that the proportion of adults wanting to take the vaccine is consistently less than fourteen other countries, there are some areas in South Africa where people are willing to take the jab in large numbers.
Listen to the interview with Kate Alexander
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