The country is on track to meet its target of vaccinating 70% of the population by 31 December. 

This was the unwavering assertion made by Deputy President David Mabuza on Thursday as he, accompanied by Gauteng Premier David Makhura, embarked on a vaccine rollout outreach in Kagiso, west of Johannesburg. 

Mabuza said the aim was to get 40-million of the 59-million South Africans fully vaccinated by 31 December, and that the country was on track to meeting this target. 

He said the ramping up of mobile vaccination sites and door-to-door campaigns encouraging citizens to fill up the empty vaccination sites was bearing fruit, with more people changing their stance and getting vaccinated. 

Mabuza added that another challenge was getting men to vaccinate, as they were more sceptical about having the jab. 

We can't criminalise lack of knowledge by sending law enforcement officials after those speeding fake news about the Covid-19 vaccines, instead, we ought to educate our people. Send expects, health care workers and counter that miss information with enlightened views

Both Mabuza and Makhura also expressed optimism regarding government's vaccination rollout strategy, saying healthcare practitioners had now "stopped waiting for people to come to vaccination sites, but had now started approaching people at their places of residence". 

"Social workers, community patrollers are now among the people that we have educated and in turn they are now going door by door and encouraging people to go and vaccinate. We have reached that stage were we will be going house by house and asking people whether they have vaccinated and if not try and get the reasons for their hesitancy. 

"In cases where they encounter strong resistance by community members then we will send healthcare workers and expects to try and convince them to vaccinate. We have to fight fire with fire, fake news with informed perspectives," said Makhura. 

The premier added that another strategy that was seemingly bearing fruit was sending pop-up vaccination sites to areas of entertainment. 

"We have received great reception by owners of establishments who are literally calling us and asking that we bring these sites to their places of entertainment. They understand that the more people who vaccinate, the quicker we get back to normal life. 

"We have also received a lot of entertainers volunteering their services to encourage especially young people and this a welcome thing. We should note that these are not tenders but people volunteering their services free of charge." 

Makhura said they had also got Wet Rand mining companies involved in encouraging their employees to vaccinate.

"We know that the West Rand is dominated by mining activity and we have met with mining houses and educated them of the need to vaccinate their workers. They [mining companies] are now the ones at the forefront of vaccinating workers and not only workers, they have also opened vaccination sites in their premises."

The deputy president and premier made their way through the Kagiso Mall’s pop-up vaccination site, as well as the Kagiso Taxi Rank, encouraging residents to go for their vaccine.