[imagesource: Matthew Modoono / Northeastern University]

Anti-vaxxers appear to love the Sea Point Promenade.

Must be that cool sea breeze mixed with a lovely sense of entitlement.

As of figures released yesterday, South Africa has administered in excess of 24 million jabs with 14,8 million people fully vaccinated.

That’s just over 37% of the adult population and points to a failure in both messaging and execution.

It’s a different story in South Africa’s most vaccinated town, though. Go on, have a guess before I reveal which town we’re talking about.

I’ll give you some clues – it’s located in the Western Cape, it’s beautiful, and it’s world-renowned for its wines.

Here’s BusinessTech for the big reveal:

Franschhoek in the Western Cape says it reached ‘population safety’ at the end of November, becoming the first town in South Africa to have more than 80% of its people vaccinated against the Covid-19 virus.

The town’s push to reach population safety is a project that began at the end of August with the goal of having everyone in the Franschhoek valley vaccinated…

Image: Rhino Africa

Franschhoek said it was only granted two vaccination dates per month. To reach population safety, a minimum of 960 people needed to be vaccinated each day, funded solely by Franschhoek Tourism.

The town’s tourism marketing manager, Ruth McCourt, said that in order to increase capacity and drive numbers up funds were raised through various initiatives, including a GoFundMe account.

How tragic to exceed that 80% vaccinated mark and then have your hopes of a festive season influx dashed by travel bans and cancelled plans.

This week, the Western Cape ticked over the 50% adult population coverage mark but other provinces lag well behind.

Via the SA Coronavirus website, here’s a breakdown by province showing people who have received either the single J&J dose or at least one of the two Pfizer doses:

The latest new infections and death stats released last night may appear at first sight to be good news:

#COVID19 UPDATE: A total of 24,159 tests were conducted in the last 24hrs, with 6 381 new cases, which represents a 26.4% positivity rate. A further 9 #COVID19 related deaths have been reported, bringing total fatalities to 89,975 to date. See more here: https://t.co/BT1tQYpcWk pic.twitter.com/GJQqBIw9uW

— NICD (@nicd_sa) December 6, 2021

However, Mondays always see a notable dip in numbers due to a drop in testing.

The positivity rate continues to climb and it’s worth keeping a close eye on tonight’s release to see where we stand.

[sources:businesstech&sacoronavirus]