[imagesource: Reuters / Mike Hutchings]

From 4PM today (April 16), online registrations for Phase 2 of South Africa’s COVID-19 vaccine rollout will officially open.

Phase 1 has been, shall we say, not without a mishap or two, but on we soldier.

Health Minister Dr Zweli Mkhize made the announcement this morning, pointing out that the bleedingly obvious when saying that registration does not guarantee that a person will be vaccinated immediately.

Phase 2 is slated to start from May 17, and will involve vaccinating around 13,3 million people, which is planned to run through until the end of October or early November.

Phase 3, targeting 22,6 million people, will start thereafter, and our government has jotted down the end of February 2022 as the date by which we will have vaccinated enough citizens to achieve vaccine herd immunity (around 40 million South Africans).

Let’s call that optimistic and move along.

More from BusinessTech on today’s registration opening:

Those who qualify will be sent a notification through SMS informing them of the time and place that the vaccine will be available. It will also come with a unique code that patients will be required to show to their vaccinator.

Patients are also expected to provide their ID and a contact number when at the vaccination site. These vaccination sites will be a combination of public and private options, with some workplaces also set to offer vaccinations, [Mkhize] said.

To register, you must visit the official South African COVID-19 Vaccination Programme Registration site.

Before 4PM, you will find a ‘demo mode’ according to the Health Department’s acting chief operating officer, Dr Milani Wolmarans, with the full site live thereafter.

At present, the portal is only available in English, but Mkhize says other languages will be rolled out over the next two weeks.

Here’s a step-by-step guide of how to register:

You can find further information on navigating the registration process here.

For those put off by recent headlines about the Johnson & Johnson vaccine rollout being halted, bear in mind that only six people out of 6,8 million who received the jab in the US experienced blood clots, and the temporary pause was done “out of an abundance of caution”.

In South Africa, of the first 289 787 healthcare workers that received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, there were no reports of blood clots.

[source:bustech]