The arrival of vaccines signalled a new era in South Africa’s fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, with the focus shifting from containment to eliminating the pandemic. However, given uncertainty about vaccine delivery dates, logistical concerns, and vaccine hesitancy, it looks increasingly unlikely that the virus will be under control by the end of 2021. In this study, we focus on vaccine hesitancy, analysing the recently released NIDS-CRAM wave 4 data that asked respondents about their willingness to be vaccinated, if vaccinations were available. We track reasons for hesitancy as well as correlates with hesitancy. We find that 71% of South African adults say they would get vaccinated if a COVID-19 vaccine was available. Among the 29% of respondents who were vaccine hesitant, the three leading reasons for their hesitancy were that they were worried about the side effects (31%), did not believe it was effective (21%) or did not trust vaccines in general (18%). Encouragingly, those with chronic conditions and the elderly – who are at a higher risk of becoming severely ill or dying if infected with the virus – were more willing than the general population to accept a vaccine. Respondents who said that they trusted social media as a source of information and those under 25
had considerably and significantly higher levels of vaccine hesitancy.