South Africa starts jabs for elderly as virus surge looms

ORANGE FARM, South Africa (AP) — Spry and gray-haired, many dressed in their Sunday best or colorful African prints — and all sporting masks — dozens of South Africans aged 60 and over gathered at a government health clinic outside Johannesburg to get their COVID-19 shots.

Some looked at vaccine notifications on their mobile phones, others clutched pieces of paper, as the line moved along at a good pace. Eight at a time, they were ushered into a tent where they took seats distanced from each other.

“You are about to receive a vaccine to protect against COVID-19. It is the Pfizer vaccine and it requires two doses,” said a nurse, speaking the Zulu language to the group at the Orange Farm township clinic, about 30 miles (45 kilometers) south of Johannesburg. She described what they should do about possible side effects.

“Amen,” she said in closing, and the vaccine recipients murmured the same response, as if in church.

South Africa is in a race against time to vaccinate as many people as possible amid signs the virus may be surging again with the approach of winter in the Southern Hemisphere, when people spend more time indoors, typically allowing for more spread of disease. It is also a critical front in the fight against the virus in Africa, with South Africa recording 40% of the continent's COVID-19 deaths.

Since January, South Africa has vaccinated nearly 500,000 of its 1.2 million health care workers and now is adding its older citizens to the campaign. In the past two weeks nearly 200,000 have received the Pfizer jabs with instructions to come back in six weeks to get their second dose.

“I am getting the vaccine because I want to be alive,” 76-year-old Elizabeth Mokwena said. “I know it's the best thing for me to do against this COVID.”

After a plateau of the...