The MEC for health, Sasekani Manzini, urged taxi drivers and commuters to be vaccinated to help curb the spread of Covid-19.

This was during her visit to Mbombela Taxi Rank’s vaccination site on Friday.

She said taxi drivers were exposed to the virus due the kind of work they do. “You meet different people on a daily basis, you exchange money with them and this puts you at risk of contracting the virus.”

This visit was part of the department’s monitoring vaccine roll-out programme. It followed the launch of the taxi rank vaccination site at the Secunda Taxi Rank in Govan Mbeki Local Municipality, last Monday.

“We are focusing on taxi drivers, our mothers that sell products here at the taxi ranks and ordinary people from the stores. We want to go where the people are. It is part of expanding the sites in the province,” Manzini said.

According to her, the department has seen an increase of people testing positive for Covid-19 in the past few months.

“I want the public to know that the third wave is different from the others. The current Covid-19 type is much stronger and it would be wise for one to get the jab to help protect oneself.

We have seen the numbers of people testing positive for Covid-19 increasing faster than the previous times.”

Fanyana Sibanyoni, the chairperson of the South African National Taxi Council in the province, said, “I would like to ask drivers, taxi owners and the community at large to go to the taxi rank to get their vaccine.

As the taxi industry, we are carriers of the virus since we transport almost all the people. I also got the vaccine and did not listen to the myths that people are spreading. We used to get vaccinated in primary school, and it is just the same thing.”

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Topstar Taxi Association’s chairperson, John Mavundla, was one of the first few drivers to get their vaccine on Friday. “I want to urge everyone to do what I did, because it will protect them from the virus and it will decrease the spread.”

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Mavundla had had his own personal experience with the virus a few months ago, and he said it was a scary sight to see others losing the battle against it in the hospitals.