KUALA LUMPUR, March 9 — A third of 500,000 frontliners have received their first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine, some three weeks before the targeted vaccination completion by March 31.
As of March 8, a total of 166,363 frontliners have received their first dose of the coronavirus vaccine, achieving 33.3 per cent of the national Covid-19 immunisation programme’s Phase One target in 13 days after the vaccines were rolled out from February 24.
If the current pace continues, the government will need another 26 days to administer at least the first dose to all 500,000 frontline workers, just slightly missing the March 31 target by three days.
Putrajaya has the highest number of doses administered per 100,000 population (2,339) while Selangor has the lowest, 235 per 100,000 population, as of March 8.
Putrajaya had the highest number of first vaccine doses administered at 2,339 per 100,000 population, followed by Labuan (2,268) and Perlis (1,201).
The lowest number of vaccine doses administered per 100,000 population is in Selangor (235), while Sabah (345) and Johor (364) are also in the bottom three.
Between March 3 and March 7, the daily doses administered declined from 27,049 doses on March 3 to 12,112 doses on March 7. Although on March 6, there was a slight increase in the number of doses administered (14,694) from March 5, it then decreased again on March 7.
However, the number of daily doses administered increased by 120 per cent from 12,112 doses on March 7 to 26,643 doses on March 8.
Yesterday, Vaccine Minister Khairy Jamaluddin said that the Covid-19 Immunisation Task Force (CITF) does not have a daily target of doses administered, but that CITF wants to complete inoculating all 500,000 frontliners, at least with the first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine, by March 31.
As compared to Australia that started their Covid-19 vaccine rollout on February 22, Malaysia has vaccinated 0.42 people per 100 population, higher than Australia (0.32) as of March 7.
On the other hand, South Korea, which started its coronavirus vaccination programme on February 26, has managed to vaccinate 0.62 per 100 population, which is higher than Malaysia as of March 7.
Khairy yesterday said that he is satisfied with the current vaccination rates and aims to increase the number of daily doses administered once Malaysia moves on to Phase Three of the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme.
