KUCHING, March 3: Sarawak leading Malaysia’s Covid-19 vaccine race with 8,323 people received shots demonstrated the commitment of the State Disaster Management Committee (SDMC) in breaking the chain of infections in the State.
Tupong assemblyman Fazzrudin Abdul Rahman has congratulated and commended SDMC for its aggressive vaccination strategy and achievement as it was reported that 8,323 individuals in Sarawak have been inoculated with Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine as of today since the three-phased State vaccination programme kicked off on Feb 26.
“The target to have 70 per cent of Sarawak’s population vaccinated until August this year is practical in order to reduce the pressure in hospitals and healthcare facilities in the State which will be insufficient (to meet the needs of increasing numbers of cases),” he said in a statement today.
Earlier today, Minister for Local Government and Housing Datuk Seri Dr Sim Kui Hian revealed that Sarawak was leading in all states with the number of people who have received the first dose of the vaccine.
According to a tweet on data from the National Immunisation Programme (NIP), the top three states that have administered the most Covid-19 vaccines as of 11am yesterday (March 1) was Sarawak with 7,402, Pahang with 2,419 and Perak with 1,277.
Dr Sim, who is also SDMC advisor, shared in his Facebook’s post that a total of 8,323 persons have been vaccinated in nine divisions in Sarawak after the rollout while the second shipment of vaccine is expected to arrive on March 4 for which will be distributed to the rest of the 12 divisions.
He added that this was achievable due to the great teamwork, solidarity and Sarawak’s united war effort despite Sarawak not being the first state in Malaysia to roll out the vaccine.
Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation Khairy Jamaluddin has informed that up to 7,064 people have been vaccinated against Covid-19 as of 11 am of March 1 since the NIP was rolled out on Feb 24.
He said the top five vaccine doses administered by districts was Kuching (1,677), Sibu (1,360), Kinta (1,141), Kuantan (1,075) and Mukah (822).
On Sarawak’s government decision to procure vaccines to meet the needs of the people, Fazzrudin emphasised that it was a proactive step taken by SDMC.
“This is a contingency plan to meet the need of vaccine supply from the Federal government.
“I believe that SDMC will get advice from Covid-19 Vaccine Advice Group (Scovag) which is led by former State Health director Prof Datuk Dr Andrew Kiyu Dawie on the matter,” he said.
At the same time, Fazzrudin who is also Parti Pesaka Bumiputera Bersatu (PBB) deputy youth chief, advised all Sarawakians to adhere to standard operating procedures (SOP) to curb Covid-19 in the State.
“Even though the Covid-19 immunisation programme is running smoothly in Sarawak, the people should not be too relaxed in complying with the SOP.
“This new norm must be observed until the situation is really safe,” he urged.
Meanwhile, Sarawak is targeting to vaccinate at least 2 million Sarawakians and 200,000 non-Sarawakians by August 2021.
The State vaccine rollout will be done in three phases with the first phase to be carried out until end of March involved 97,161 frontliners followed by the second phase from April to May involving 956,435 people in the high-risk groups and third phase from May to August for 999,834 healthy individuals aged 18 years and above. — DayakDaily
