Undertakers join Covid-19 vaccination campaign in Soweto

In South Africa’s largest city Soweto, the latest group of people who have joined the covid 19-vaccination campaign are undertakers.

Owner of Vuyo's Funeral Services, Vuyo Mabindisa threw more light on the rationale behind their involvement in the campaign.

"So what we want to achieve is at least 90% of the people in Soweto to vaccinate. We are back to normal if they do that and the economy will go back to normal. Because Soweto on its own, it's the heart of the economy in Gauteng (province)." Vuyo Mabindisa stated.

Some undertakers took to the streets of Soweto distributing flyers, encouraging the masses to vaccinate but the myths surrounding the vaccination will not allow some to go in for the precious liquid.

"I just heard some rumors about vaccination that after getting the vaccination you get like infected, you die from vaccination, so that's the reason why I have not yet wanted to do vaccination." Brian Makubane said.

Gauteng province - which includes Soweto, Johannesburg and Pretoria - is a hotspot of new infections, with more than 70% of the new cases.

South Africa has accelerated its vaccination campaign by giving jabs at pop-up sites in shopping centres and transportation hubs to combat a rapid rise in new COVID-19 cases a week after the discovery of the omicron variant of the coronavirus. According to statistics, about 36% of adults in South Africa are fully vaccinated.

The country now has 19 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech and the Johnson & Johnson vaccines, but the pace of vaccinations has slowed.