Johannesburg – The department of health said that 11 381 new Covid-19 cases were recorded in the past 24 hours.
The cumulative amount of cases in the country now stands at 1 380 807.
The department of health further said, “Regrettably, we report 647 which brings the total to 39 501 death. Our recoveries now stand at 1 183 443 , representing a recovery rate of 85,7%.”
In an exclusive interview held with Sunday World, President Cyril Ramaphosa said that rich countries are gobbling available vaccines in a move that could see poor and middle-income countries like South Africa failing to vaccinate millions of their vulnerable people, including frontline healthcare workers and the elderly.
21 January 2021 #COVID19 statistics in South Africa #CoronaVirusSA pic.twitter.com/zqKA4yuYDO
— Department of Health (@HealthZA) January 21, 2021
President Cyril Ramaphosa has raised concerns that rich countries have weakened Covax, a global alliance of mostly low and middle-income countries that has pooled resources together to buy vaccines at a cheaper price and ensure their equitable distribution to save lives.
“We have been concerned about the vaccine issue because there seems to be sort of a nationalism around vaccines. We wanted to see vaccines as a common good, available on an equitable basis to various countries in the world,” he said.
“Our concern was obviously based on the fact that your higher-income countries were just buying out everyone. That in itself weakens Covax because Covax is a process in which various countries come together and get a vaccine cheaply on a combined basis. Those countries [rich countries] went and bought.”
Read more: Poorer countries could miss out as US and Europe hog Covid vaccine
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