By Nur Ashikin Louis
KUCHING, Sept 1: The Sarawak government is in the process of implementing a vaccination programme for individuals aged 12 to 17 in the State.
Chief Minister Datuk Patinggi Abang Johari Tun Openg said this group consists of 289,200 individuals who represent 9.94 per cent of the State’s population.
“We are working to implement the vaccination programme under the supervision of the Ministry of Health (MOH) and Sarawak Disaster Management Committee (SDMC).
“The government hopes that parents can give their full cooperation to the authorities to facilitate and ensure smooth implementation of this programme later,” he said during the State-level National Day 2021 celebration at the State Legislative Assembly (DUN) Complex last night (Aug 31).
Abang Johari also disclosed that there are 2,066,000 individuals aged 18 and above in the State who are eligible to receive Covid-19 vaccinations.
“As of Aug 30, the vaccination programme in Sarawak had achieved the rate of 91 per cent which is equivalent to 1,879,360 individuals who have received the first dose of vaccine.
“For the second dose, a total of 1,821,499 or 88.2 per cent of individuals were fully vaccinated against Covid-19,” he said.
He pointed out that although the infection rate is high especially in the Southern Zone, 99 per cent of infections are in Categories 1 and 2 whereby the patients develop no symptoms and mild symptoms respectively.
“With that, I urge the people to continue to adhere to the standard operating procedures (SOPs) that have been set so that the number of daily infections can be reduced as soon as possible.
“I believe that with the two-vaccine doses that we have received and adherence to the SOPs, we will be safer,” said Abang Johari.
The Southern Zone includes Kuching, Bau, Lundu, Samarahan, Asajaya, Simunjan, Serian and Tebedu districts.
Head of State Tun Pehin Sri Abdul Taib Mahmud and his wife Toh Puan Datuk Patinggi Raghad Kurdi Taib were present to grace the State-level National Day 2021 celebration event.
Also in attendance were Tourism, Arts, Culture, Youth and Sports Minister Datuk Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah, who is also the minister-in-charge for the event, as well as other State Cabinet ministers. — DayakDaily
