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BCC needs to vaccinate over 720 000 to reach herd immunity. Image by Unsplash
BY LIZWE SEBATHA | @The_CBNews | This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. | OCT 4, 2021
Contrary to pronouncements by government players, the numbers show that it may take a longer period for the city to reach herd immunity.
BULAWAYO (The Citizen Bulletin) — Bulawayo is still far off from achieving COVID-19 herd immunity, contrary to claims by Vice President Constantino Chiwenga, who also doubles up as Health and Child Care minister.
“I am also happy that pretty soon, Bulawayo will be one of the cities to achieve herd immunity because we have already exceeded, for the first dose, 64% for Bulawayo, and it will be a matter of weeks before everybody surpasses the 60% for both jabs, that’s the first and second doses,” Chiwenga told delegates attending a Zimbabwe International Trade Fair (ZITF) business conference on September 23.
The city's population is disputed—the 2012 census listed it at 653,337, while the Bulawayo City Council (BCC) claimed it to be about 1.2 million.
“Bulawayo, the heart of a tremendous wide sweep of the western parts of Zimbabwe, is the second-largest city in Zimbabwe with a population of about 1.5 million fully integrated people of different races, tribal groupings and cultural backgrounds,” the BCC says in a note about Bulawayo.
According to the UN World Urbanisation Prospects estimates, Bulawayo's 2021 population is now estimated at 639,722. In 1950, the population of Bulawayo was 91 635, the UN population division says.
The UN division adds that Bulawayo has grown by 1,534 since 2015, which represents a 0.24% annual change.
Using the 2012 census data, Bulawayo needs to have vaccinated a total of 418 135 people for the first dose to reach 64% and a total of 392 002 for both jabs to achieve herd immunity.
The BCC needs to vaccinate over 720 000 to reach herd immunity using the council estimated 1. 5 million city population.
However, the local authority is still far off the mark using the 2012 census, BCC and UN World Urbanisation Prospects estimates.
“I know we have reached just over 200 000 for both doses. We need approximately 450 000 to reach herd immunity if we are to use Bulawayo population estimates of 750 000,” BCC health director Edwin Sibanda says.
All 19 BCC clinics and central hospitals have been turned into COVID-19 vaccination centres.
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Private health institutions such as Ekusileni Medical Centre, CIMAS, MASCA and Zimdef building have also been engaged in the vaccination drive in the city.
The institutions can charge a nominal injection fee by a doctor of $434, 35 and a jab by a nurse at $220, 64.
A survey by The Citizen Bulletin for the past two weeks revealed that long queues that characterised most of the city's vaccination centres with the increasing number of residents who wanted to be inoculated when COVID-19 cases and fatalities increased in the face of the COVID-19 third wave have since disappeared.
The long vaccination queues which characterised Bulawayo vaccine centres have since disappeared. Image by The Citizen Bulletin
Itai Rusike, Executive Director, Community Working Group on Health (CWGH), blames this on complacency as recorded COVID-19 cases and deaths fall.
“COVID-19 is not going anywhere anytime soon, and Zimbabwe is most likely to be experiencing a lot more waves and even more deadly variants if we lower our guard down and allow complacency to creep in,” Rusike says
The country has been witnessing a fall in COVID-19 cases and deaths in recent weeks.
“There is a need for widespread vaccination of the population to achieve the required herd immunity and defeat this pandemic. There is a need for sustained COVID-19 vaccine literacy on the continued importance of vaccination,” Rusike adds.
The country began COVID-19 vaccination in February. As of 27 September 2021, a total of 3, 051 371 Zimbabweans have received their first jab while 2, 211 880 are now fully vaccinated.
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