Understanding the depth of vaccine hesitancy, and the drivers behind the lack of take-up is critical to preventing further deaths, infections, and continuing harm to the economy.
South Africa is currently facing a new wave of infections related to the much higher transmissibility of the omicron COVID variant and its sub-variants. The most recent spike has had similar characteristics as the fourth wave in January 2022: increases in infections have not been accompanied by similar increases spikes in hospitalisations and deaths.
Vaccine take-up is particularly crucial for the country because of the HIV prevalence rate of 13% as well as the fact that it has the highest rates link of TB and TB/HIV incidence in the world. Both are known correlates of COVID-19 mortality. The dataset cannot be considered a prevalence survey, or nationally representative. Nevertheless, it was a diverse sample with broad coverage over race, vaccine-eligible age categories, province, income levels and geographical area.
Our results showed that it’s imperative to spread awareness of need for the vaccine, despite the current context of omicron. A very high number of respondents opposed a vaccine mandate even though about half thought mandates would work well. Opponents overwhelmingly cited that it was an individual’s right to decide, with some saying the president said vaccination would not be mandated.Given that mandates are likely to be used at work or school, with South Africa’s high rates of unemployment, mandates may not improve vaccination rates substantially, and will have to be approached with care.
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