KUALA LUMPUR, August 19 — Over 50 per cent of Malaysia’s adult population has received two Covid-19 vaccine doses, two weeks ahead of the previous government’s August 31 target.
As of yesterday, 50.2 per cent of adults in Malaysia have been fully vaccinated, while 75.3 per cent have received at least their first dose.
Five states or regions — Labuan (90.0 per cent), Sarawak (82.5 per cent), the Klang Valley (73.8 per cent), Negeri Sembilan (67.6 per cent) and Perlis (58.1 per cent) — have fully inoculated more than 50 per cent of their adult residents.
In fact, the previous Perikatan Nasional government achieved its target of 400,000 daily Covid-19 shots-to-the-arm in the second week of July, two weeks ahead of its August schedule, after 421,479 people nationwide were vaccinated on July 12.
From August 12 until yesterday, the country administered a daily average of 486,318 vaccine doses.
Then-National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme Coordinating Minister Khairy Jamaluddin previously aimed on August 1 to fully inoculate half of the country’s adult population by August 31.
Caretaker Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin also announced on July 26 that the government plans to completely inoculate all adults in Malaysia under the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme (PICK) by October.
However, yesterday, CodeBlue reported that Malaysia has only received about 33.9 million doses of Pfizer-BioNTech, AstraZeneca-Oxford, Sinovac and CanSino vaccines as of August 16 and administered about 28.8 million of those by August 17, leaving just some five million doses left in stock.
The coronavirus vaccine doses delivered to Malaysia so far only comprises about 34 per cent from the federal government’s total procurement of some 87.9 million doses, excluding doses contributed by foreign countries.
It is to be noted that the Covid-19 epidemic is worsening in states with poor vaccine coverage.
States under Phase Two of the National Recovery Plan (NRP), including Pahang, Kelantan, Penang, Perak, Sabah, and Terengganu, are witnessing a surge in Covid-19 infections, hospital admissions, and deaths.
States like Melaka (42.3 per cent), Penang (40.5 per cent), Terengganu (38.4 per cent), Perak (37.7 per cent), Pahang (36.8 per cent), Kedah (33.9 per cent), Kelantan (32.6 per cent), Johor (32.1 per cent), and Sabah (25.8 per cent) have fully vaccinated less than 50 per cent of their adult populations.
