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Solidarity needed to hold off third wave this Easter
By Nathan Craig
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Durban - The South African Covid-19 Modelling Consortium Epidemic Explorer, an open access website, has provided data that showed Covid-19 infections were down prior to Easter and stakeholders were working to keep it that way.
The website was built to analyse the resurgence risk, present metrics to prepare for future outbreaks, and monitor Covid-19 hospital admissions.
It is a collaboration between the National Institute for Communicable Diseases, Modelling and Simulation Hub, Africa at the UCT, South African Centre for Epidemiological Modelling and Analysis at Stellenbosch University and the Health Economics and Epidemiology Research Office at the Wits University in partnership with Boston University.
Government recently released information on which groups of people in South Africa will be first to receive Covid-19 vaccinations. While local experts welcome most of the prioritisation choices, some practical nuances remain unclear.
The Department of Health published its Vaccine Rollout Strategy on the third of January, based on an advisory from the Ministerial Advisory Committee (MAC) on Covid-19 Vaccines. The framework for allocation explains that since vaccine amounts are limited, prioritisation is needed and based on both evidence-based practicalities and ethical considerations, including African indigenous values.
The rollout plan has three phases, starting with a target population of 1.25 million frontline healthcare workers (HCWs).
While local experts generally welcome the order in which vaccines will be provided to different categories of people in South Africa, they are concerned that some practical nuances are unclear.