South Africa quickens vaccine drive, gets more doses from US

Hitting its stride after a faltering start, South Africa’s mass vaccination campaign gave jabs to 220,000 people a day last week and is accelerating toward the goal of 300,000 per day

JOHANNESBURG -- The cars lined up by the strikingly modern mosque and were guided to parking bays where the drivers soon got jabs. The brisk pace at the Houghton mosque COVID-19 vaccination center is seeing 700 people per day getting shots and is expected to soon reach 1,000 a day. “This is exciting! We’re vaccinating more people than we expected,” said Yaseen Theba, chairman of the Muslim Association of South Africa a day after the vaccination center opened last week. “We created this drive-thru site to accommodate as many people as possible, in a situation where they are comfortable. And it's working! We'll keep it going as long a people need to get vaccinated.” Hitting its stride after a faltering start, South Africa's mass vaccination drive gave jabs to 220,000 people a day last week and is accelerating toward the goal of 300,000 per day. With large deliveries of doses arriving and some vaccines being assembled here, South Africa appears on track to inoculate about 35 million of its 60 million people by the end of the year and 40 million by February.