- The Western Cape education department says some people are trying to get Covid-19 vaccines even though they are not teachers.
- It says it has put in place measures to prevent people from abusing the vaccination campaign for teachers.
- It has urged the public to report anyone who is trying to abuse the system.
The Western Cape education department has warned that people are abusing the sector's Covid-19 vaccine rollout by trying to get jabs when they don't qualify for any.
According to MEC Debbie Schäfer, the department has put in place measures to prevent people from abusing the system.
Schäfer said in a statement:
She added that only those who are scheduled to attend a specific site on a specific day will receive their vaccines. The department will not be accepting any walk-ins.
"If you are uncertain about your date for vaccination, speak to your principal – district officials are communicating directly with them."
Only qualifying staff should attend a designated site on the day that they are supposed to, Schäfer stressed.
"We have such a short window in which to administer vaccines for our sector, so this must be done in an orderly fashion and requires the utmost cooperation from sector staff," she added.
"We do not want to have a scenario where staff arrive at a site and we don't have vaccines available for them – or [where] we have to cancel appointments due to a shortage."
If anyone is aware of someone who is trying to get a vaccination as part of the education sector rollout when they don't qualify for one, they can report the person to the Safe Schools hotline: 0800 45 46 47.
Teachers who have not yet received their appointment slots have been urged to exercise patience because the department is expecting the allocation of slots to be finalised by Wednesday.
"We assure our independent schools – whose data was uploaded later than that of public schools, not by choice of the [department], but because they were only included later into the programme – that they will receive their appointments timeously and that we will communicate slots to principals directly," the department said.
"We are confident that the rollout will be able to continue until 8 July, despite the early closure of schools announced last night," Schäfer added.
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