In partnership with the business sector, the government has announced several incentives for South Africans who get vaccinated in South Africa

Staff Writer | Business Tech

In a media briefing on Friday morning (29 October), health minister Joe Phaalha said that various businesses had donated incentives for people to get vaccinated. These incentives will generally be split between general members of the public and healthcare workers, he said.

Some of the specific incentives include:

• Restaurant group Nandos has donated 1,000 vouchers of R500 each that will be awarded to healthcare workers as part of a prize draw on election day. These will be given to the best performing vaccination teams at vaccine sites across the country on 1 November.

• Ride-sharing company Uber will provide a R100 trip to transport healthcare workers to pop-up vaccination sites on the day of elections.

• As part of a new R26 million pilot scheme, R100 ‘vooma vouchers’ will be given to people over 60 who get vaccinated in November. These will be sent in the form of an SMS and will allow people to shop at Shoprite and Checkers retail stores. The will be given on a first-come-first-serve basis.

Phaalha said that these vooma vouchers were sponsored by several companies and groups, including:

• Alan Gray;
• The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation;
• The DG Murray Trust;
• The ELMA Vaccines & Immunization Foundation;
• The Michael and Susan Dell Foundation.

“We hope the pilot scheme will be a success so that it will encourage other companies to come forward and offer incentives,” Phaalha said. He added that more businesses are expected to announce additional incentives in the coming weeks.

Not out of the woods 

The push to offer vaccination incentives comes amid concerns around a fourth Covid-19 wave of infections in South Africa over the December holiday period.

Phaalha noted that infections, hospitalisations and deaths had declined significantly in the country, but he cautioned against people becoming complacent. 

“The rate of infections over the last 14 days has remained stable at a low base. By yesterday the total Covid-19 active cases were 18,568. This is when you compare with the stats from a month ago when we had 46,577 active cases,” Phaalha said.

“New Covid-19 cases over the last seven days decreased by about 22%. Hospitalisation is down by 14.5% over the last seven days; the fatality rate has reduced by 18% over the last seven days.” 

Phaalha added that the overall positivity rate has been stable over the last 7 to 14 days at an average of 1.7% in all the provinces over the previous seven days. “We have a stable infection rate at a low base, lower than 100 per day.”

However, Phaalha said that he was concerned about super-spreader events leading to a rise in infections s -especially in the run-up to the elections.

He said that the decline in cases was not a reason to stop wearing masks or practice social distancing, pointing to countries like Russia, which have seen a significant spike in cases recently.

The government has confirmed that it will also offer booster Covid-19 shots to health workers next month.

Boosters will be offered to almost 500,000 people who received the Johnson and Johnson vaccine as part of a trial earlier this year, health department deputy director-general Nicholas Crisp told Bloomberg.  The doses will be available from 8 November, he said.