COSATU urges all workers and South Africans to support the National Vooma Vaccine weekend Friday 12th – Sunday 14th November. 

10 November 2021 

The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) urges all workers and their families to support the national Vooma vaccine weekend Friday 12th – Sunday 14th November 2021. This is a national campaign that will take place at vaccination sites in all municipalities across the country.   

Currently, there are over 89 000 South Africans who have succumbed to the deadly COVID-19, whilst many more have lost jobs, wages and businesses.   

COVID-19 remains a deadly threat that needs to be taken seriously by all South Africans. The Federation supports the various interventions government has implemented to manage this deadly pandemic. These include non-pharmaceutical interventions like the wearing of masks, sanitising and social distancing.   

These interventions though can only take us so far, which is why it is important for South Africans to vaccinate. These vaccines have been proven to be highly effective in protecting people from being infected, transmitting the virus, becoming seriously ill, and most critically from dying.    

We applaud government for working hard to secure the supply of vaccines, ensuring that they are provided free of charge to the public and putting in place the logistics for every South African to access these vaccines.  

Millions of workers and South Africans have already been vaccinated.   To date more than 23 million vaccines have been dispensed to more than 39.42% of the adult population.  COSATU salutes the tireless efforts of our nurses, paramedics, doctors and health workers who have managed to vaccinate nearly 16 million people to date.  

What is worrying tough is an increase in vaccine hesitancy amongst some South Africans. The daily average vaccine rate has declined from over 250 000 to less than 150 000. This places in real danger the national target of ensuring that over 70% of the population is immunised by the end of 2021.    

As a country, we need to ensure that the daily vaccination rate is doubled.  We urge workers to seek more information about the vaccines if they have any doubt. COSATU and its Affiliates are putting structures in place to help fight misinformation and help mobilise every worker to be vaccinated.    

COSATU’s September Central Committee issued a call for all its affiliated unions to ensure that at least 80% of our members are vaccinated by the end of 2021. It is critical that we ramp up vaccination numbers as we prepare for the anticipated 4th wave at the end of November.   

The Federation, therefore, welcomes the second Vooma vaccine weekend. We are encouraging everyone who has not vaccinated yet to do so this weekend.   We owe it to our health workers who at great cost to themselves have borne the brunt of this pandemic and carried the nation on their shoulders.  

Vaccine sites will be open across the country and on-site registration will be done. The vaccines are safe and effective, and ensuring every person is vaccinated is critical to saving lives, to saving jobs and ensuring the economy can re-emerge safely. The tools to defeat Covid-19 are in our hands!  

Issued by Sizwe Pamla, National Spokesperson, COSATU, 10 November 2021