KUALA LUMPUR, March 10 — Putrajaya, Labuan, and Perlis — the three smallest states and territories in Malaysia — have administered Covid-19 vaccines to more than 1.5 per cent of their population.
As the country’s daily vaccination rates increase, Putrajaya has managed to vaccinate 2.7 per cent of their population with at least one dose of the Covid-19 vaccine, the highest among all states and federal territories.
After Putrajaya, 2.3 per cent of Labuan’s population of 99,600 people have been vaccinated, followed by 1.6 per cent of Perlis’s population who have received their first doses.
Sarawak, which has the fourth biggest population in Malaysia, recorded the fourth highest vaccination coverage at 0.98 per cent of the population.
On the other hand, only 0.29 per cent of the 6,538,100 residents in Selangor have been vaccinated, the lowest vaccination coverage in the country. Sabah and Johor, recording the second-lowest vaccination coverage, both have only managed to inoculate 0.42 per cent of their population.
Selangor has the biggest population in Malaysia, followed by Sabah, Johor, and Sarawak.
As of March 9, a total of 195,923 individuals have received their first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine. This amounts to 0.6 per cent of Malaysia’s total population. These people are part of an estimated 500,000 frontline workers prioritised for shots in the first phase of the Covid-19 inoculation campaign.
The government targets to inoculate 80 per cent of the population before December 31 to achieve herd immunity towards the coronavirus. The national Covid-19 immunisation programme will soon move into Phase Two on April 1, targeting nine million of the population that are aged above 60 or suffer from underlying medical conditions.
Over the past three days, the number of individuals who received their first dose of the coronavirus shot has increased from 12,112 individuals on March 7 to 29,560 individuals on March 9, an average of 22,772 individuals vaccinated per day.
If this vaccination rate is maintained, the Phase One target of immunising 500,000 people at least with the first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine can be achieved within the next 13 days, possibly on March 23.
However, from March 17 onwards, individuals who have received their first dose of Covid-19 vaccine from February 24 will be coming in for their second dose vaccine appointment.
Hence, the number of doses administered will have to be increased in order for the Phase One target to be achieved before March 31.
