Mandatory vaccinations have been the topic of debate after President Cyril Ramaphosa announced that a government task team is looking into making vaccinations against the coronavirus compulsory for certain activities and locations.
Trade union federation, Cosatu stood in favour of this, saying that although it was initially opposed to forced COVID-19 vaccinations, its stance has changed since, as News24 reports.
It might take South Africa two months to impose this potential vaccine mandate, which means that the window is closing for those who have had not yet had their first dose of Pfizer.
According to Business Insider, “in South Africa you currently have to wait 42 days between doses of the Pfizer vaccine, and only two weeks after the second dose are you considered fully vaccinated.”
This means that South Africans would need to get their first dose by December 7 in order to be fully vaccinated by February 1.
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Due to the new Omicron variant, the country seems to be heading that way. Scientists in South Africa are hard at work to assess how well COVID-19 vaccines hold up against the Omicron variant.
“The variant carries dozens of mutations that scientists expect to change how the virus spreads, including its ability to infect people and how well it hides from vaccines or previously infected patients who had older variants,” The Guardian explains.
A South African doctor, who was one of the first to raise the alarm over the Omicron variant has described the COVID-19 symptoms linked to this new strain as “mild”, but it’s still too early to say for sure.
According to CNBC, the World Health Organization (WHO) said it will take weeks to understand how the variant may affect diagnostics, therapeutics and vaccines.
Dr. Angelique Coetzee, chair of the South African Medical Association, told BBC that symptoms differed slightly from those associated with the Delta variant, which is a globally dominant and highly contagious strain of the virus.
Also read: Omicron COVID variant presents “mild” symptoms for now says SA doctor
“The first steps of developing a potential new vaccine overlap with the research necessary in order to evaluate whether a new shot will be needed,” BioNTech said in a statement.
BioNTech said on Friday, November 26 that more lab data is expected over the next two weeks to determine if there is a need for an Omicron-specific vaccine, while Moderna said it was working on a redesign of its COVID-19 vaccine for booster shots in the future.
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