Studies have shown that less people are hesitant to get vaccinated in November 2021 than in July of the same year. While this is good news, other research have revealed that school children have lost a year’s worth of learning in the pandemic. Here is a round-up of Covid-19 related news that made headlines this week.

Vaccine hesitancy takes a dip

A recent survey by the University of Johannesburg (UJ) and Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) has shown that there was a slight decline in vaccine hesitancy from 28% in July 2021 to 25% in November 2021.

SANews.gov.za reports the online survey was conducted using the data-free Moya Messenger app, which has six million subscribers and 800 000 users per day.

Yamkela Majikijela, a PhD research trainee at the HSRC, says the survey focused on the latest data research, titled “Round 4″ (undertaken between 25 June and 20 July 2021) and “Round 5” (undertaken between 22 October and 17 November 2021).

She says by mid-2021, 10% of people were vaccinated and 61% were favourable (total = 71% accepting), with hesitancy at 28%.

“In Oct/Nov 2021 in Round 5, 36% were vaccinated and 38% favourable (total = 74% accepting), with 25% hesitant.

“Results show that the ‘accepting’ are increasingly getting the Covid-19 vaccine, but a large share of this group remain unvaccinated,” she says.

Majikijela says the share that is hesitant declined only marginally during 2021.

Looking at vaccine acceptance and hesitancy by demographics, the survey shows that the 18 – 34 age group is more hesitant compared to other age groups.

In terms of gender, females were more hesitant compared to males. Meanwhile on population group, the levels of hesitancy within white people remain higher than among black African or Indian and Asian adults.

Gauteng reaches 10 million vaccine target

The Gauteng Department of Health has reached its target of vaccinating more than 10 million people in the province against Covid-19, reports The Citizen.

Health MEC Dr Nomathemba Mokgethi revealed this on Tuesday during the tabling of her department’s budget vote for the 2022/23 financial year in the provincial legislature.

Gauteng is leading the other provinces in the country in terms of the number of jabs administered at 10,005,136, followed by KwaZulu-Natal with more than five million vaccinations. Nationally, nearly 50% of the population has been vaccinated.

Mokgethi says a total of R1.5 billion was allocated for the fight against the pandemic.

One year of learning lost to Covid-19

Despite efforts to implement recovery plans, researchers have found that there has been a loss of one year of learning in as far as reading is concerned, says Basic Education Minister, Angie Motshekga.

SANews.gov.za reports Motshekga says she has requested the department’s researchers to analyse the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the basic education system.

“The researchers agree that at the heart of our Sector, is learning, and at the heart of improving learning, is improving reading in the early grades.

“They report that prior to Covid-19, we had seen progress in the reading abilities of children.

“According to the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS), reading in Grade 4, improved substantially between 2006 and 2016.

However, and according to Professor Martin Gustafssohn, the research suggests that, by the end of 2021, the average Grade 4 learner could read as well as the average Grade 3 learner before the pandemic.

“Therefore, there has been a loss of one year of learning.

“Put differently, we slid backwards in terms of our PIRLS progress by a few years.

“These losses are similar to what has been witnessed around the world,” she says.

Motshekga says given these losses, and despite the department’s best efforts in terms of its school recovery plan, it is not expected that the PIRLS 2021 results will display any improvements, when released at the end of this year.