Malaysia on track to have 50% of adults fully vaccinated this month, says Khairy

Malaysia is on track to achieving its target of getting 50% of its adult population fully vaccinated this month, says the coordinating minister for the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme (PICK), Khairy Jamaluddin.

Khairy said PICK had started to show early positive results with the programme administering 12 million doses of vaccines in July alone, more than the eight million cumulative doses administered from February to June.

“Our average daily vaccination rate for July was almost 400,000, surpassing our target of 300,000. We started the month behind advanced countries like Australia, Japan and South Korea, but finished the month considerably ahead.

“Our ramp-up has been internationally recognised and we have been recording daily vaccinations in excess of half a million doses.

“This shows what we have always known, what was holding us back was not the lack of capacity, resources or competency, but rather not having a consistent supply of vaccines due to global vaccine inequity and the hoarding of vaccines by certain countries which has been condemned by the World Health Organization,” he said in a video on Twitter today.

According to Khairy, PICK has also achieved its goal of ensuring that 100% of adults in the Klang Valley receive at least a single dose, in an exercise called Operation Surge Capacity which involved administering an average of 235,000 doses each day.

He thanked all parties involved and said he hoped to see an inflection point for hospitalisations and deaths in the Klang Valley in the next few weeks as people get their second dose.

Khairy said Malaysia had now seen more than 40% of its adult population receiving two doses and more than 50% of its total population receiving at least a single dose, while 81% of all registered adults had received at least a single dose of vaccine.

He also mentioned the effectiveness of PICK in Labuan with 60% of its total population having been fully vaccinated and 56% in Sarawak.

Since the start of July, he said, the number of Covid-19 patients in the ICU has dropped by 60% in Sarawak and close to 100% in Labuan, while other key data like deaths and serious hospitalisation were also on a downtrend.

“We know that the Delta variant is prevalent in both Sarawak and Labuan, yet Alhamdulillah, the vaccines are having their intended effect of reducing the severity of Covid-19,” he said.

Khairy also encouraged more foreign workers and migrants to get vaccinated, saying PICK would be working with NGOs to get the refugee community vaccinated soon, while people in prisons and detention centres would also be inoculated in the coming weeks.

“We had a very good July and we are on track for our August targets. We need to work hard to get as many people vaccinated as quickly as possible so that our economy can open, our people can recover and our nation can heal.

“I will not stop until every adult is fully vaccinated by the end of October. That has been my promise to you. I hope I can see this through,” he said.