Being transparent with our data has been a core pillar of the Western Cape’s COVID-19 response strategy.

By doing so, we give our residents the information they need to be part of our team effort and enable them to take personal responsibility. 

I believe that being open in this way will help ensure that this government is held accountable, and therefore be more responsive and effective.

It is the reason why we launched our award-winning COVID-19 public-facing dashboard last year, which has generated more than 2 million views.

And it is why I requested that the Western Cape Government do the same for our vaccination programme, providing data on vaccination registration, and eventually vaccinations themselves.

Today, I am pleased to announce that this dashboard is live and I encourage residents to view it here https://coronavirus.westerncape.gov.za/vaccine-dashboard.

This dashboard includes:

A breakdown by the district and local municipality of residents who have registered for their vaccine, and a percentage of this relative to the eligible population (statistics are from the StatsSA 2020 midyear population estimates).

A filtering capability that enables us to quickly identify areas with low registration. This will enable targeted interventions to increase vaccine registration.

An interactive “heat map” that will allow residents to zoom into their neighbourhood to see how many elderly people may reside in the community.

A list of active vaccination sites, which will also tell you how many residents are within a 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 km radius of the site.

A list of ‘points of interest’, which will include our free Wi-Fi spots, religious centres, shopping areas, old age homes, government offices among others.

The latest registration data will be updated daily at 12h00, using the previous day's information as provided from the EVDS.

While it may not be 100% perfect, because population numbers by area may have changed over the last year, it is a very useful tool to determine trends.

The most evident trend so far is that registrations in poorer communities are much lower when compared to other areas. The main reason for this is the lack of access to the resources that would enable registration on the EVDS.

This is very worrying to me. Vaccines save lives, and every life must matter. No matter where you live, or what you earn. We must ensure a fair, and equitable vaccination programme in our province.

On this note, I strongly believe that the registration process needs to be simplified considerably so that all barriers to getting the vaccine are removed. This is something that we will raise with the national government.

The Western Cape Government has already taken a number of steps to help those without resources to register:

We have trained the staff at all 75 Cape Access Centres across the province so that they can help residents register for free.

We have zero-rated the EVDS portal on our public Wi-Fi hotspots so that it will not take up any data from the free 3GB allocation provided.

Most Western Cape libraries will also be able to assist across the province.

We will deploy additional resources to help in these communities, including our Safety Ambassadors and Community Healthcare Workers, to increase registration.

We will target our communications campaign in these areas, providing as much information on how to register as possible.

While we are working hard to bridge this gap, we simply cannot do it alone. We need every person to help register someone who is 60 years and older.

That is why I have also launched by “6 minutes for the 60+” campaign, and I encourage every resident to get behind this effort.

We are all in this battle against COVID-19 together, so let’s stand together and make sure we get every person over 60 registered as soon as possible.

To register for the vaccine, you will need to visit: https://vaccine.enroll.health.gov.za/#/. This portal can also be found via www.westerncape.gov.za(link is external)

You can also dial *134*832# and follow the prompts (FREE on all South African Networks), or WhatsApp the word REGISTER to 0600 123456.

Should you need assistance with the registration process, do not hesitate to visit www.sacoronavirus.co.za/evds/support/(link is external) or call our call centre on 0860 142 142.

Issued by Western Cape Office of the Premier, 30 May 2021