Simphiwe Mofokeng, Senior Healthcare Consultant at Chartered Employee Benefits, shares a summary of vaccination policies developments.
Developments in Regulations for Mandatory Vaccination Policies for Businesses
Following President Cyril Ramaphosa’s state of the nation address, we have seen further easing of restrictions. It would seem that the end of the national state of disaster is near; however, the pandemic is not over, and there is an ongoing need to prevent and mitigate the risks associated with SARS-CoV-2 exposure in the workplace. The necessity remains to incorporate the provisions in the Regulations and the Direction relevant to preventing and mitigating the risks.
The Department of Employment and Labour, in consultation with NEDLAC, has issued a Code of Good Practice, which was recently published by the government intended to take effect on the date of the lapsing of the Declaration of a National State of Disaster, as the direction on ‘Occupational Health and Safety Measures in Certain Workplaces Regulations’, will cease to have legal effect.
The purpose of this Code is to guide employers and employees in managing exposure to SARS-CoV-2 in the workplace and requires any person interpreting an employment law to take this Code into account.
The code also requires that every employer must take measures to determine the vaccination status of their workers and empowers the employer to require their employees “to produce a vaccination certificate”.
The Code of Good Practice is stricter when compared to the previous Consolidated Covid 19 direction on Health and Safety in the Workplace.
The direction allowed employees the right to refuse to be vaccinated based on constitutional or medical grounds, whereas the Code of Good Practice requires the employer to make reasonable accommodation for an employee’s refusal where the employee produces a medical certificate attesting to the employee having contra-indications for vaccination – and the employer accepts such medical assessment, or has the assessment confirmed at its own expense.
To read more, click on https://www.gov.za/documents/disaster-management-act-code-practice-managing-exposure-sars-cov-2-workplace-15-mar-2022
Updates on COVID Booster Shots
It is still unknown how long protection from COVID-19 vaccines lasts, but current data indicates that most people have strong protection against serious illness and death for at least six months. However, there is increasing evidence that the effectiveness of the COVID-19 vaccine against infection and mild symptoms can wane over time.
Based on data provided to the World Health Organisation (WHO) by the manufacturer of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, it has been shown to be 95% effective in an ongoing large-scale clinical trial. The manufacturer of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine has shown it to be 66.9% effective in an ongoing large-scale clinical trial.
With over 33 million vaccine doses administered for COVID-19 in South Africa to date, part of which is made up of over 43% of the adult population who have been fully vaccinated, the country still has not reached the herd immunity target of 67% through vaccinations.
As of From February 2022, the COVID-19 booster shot was made available to South Africans over the age of 18 years who are fully vaccinated. They must have had either one dose of Johnson & Johnson, or two doses of the Pfizer-BionNTech vaccine.
The timing for the administration of booster doses for immunocompromised individuals differs from the below:
Johnson & Johnson
From Monday 14 March 2022, you may have your first booster dose 60 days after your primary vaccination with J&J. Then, you are eligible to receive an additional booster of either J&J or Pfizer 90 days after the first booster.
Pfizer – BioNTech
For the Pfizer vaccine, you are eligible for the first booster dose 90 days after your second scheduled vaccine dose. You may have either the J&J or Pfizer booster.
To date, just under 2 million booster vaccines have been administered.
To keep up to date with the developments on COVID vaccinations, you can access the following link: https://vaccination.sacoronavirus.co.za/support/home