SIBU, Aug 7: With Sarawak achieving 70 per cent vaccination rate, the number of Covid-19 positive cases that need hospitalisation has reduced drastically, says Dr Annuar Rapaee.
In disclosing this at his Facebook Live today, the Sibu Divisional Disaster Management Committee coordinator said of the 41 cases reported in the division today, 11 are in Stage 1 (asymptomatic), 29 in Stage 2 (symptomatic, no pneumonia) and one in State 3 (symptomatic, pneumonia).
In Sibu Division, he added there is no more patients in Stage 4 (symptomatic, pneumonia and requiring supplemental oxygen) and Stage 5 (critically ill with multi organs involvement) of Covid-19 clinical stage.
“We are convinced that vaccination gives protection from severity of the disease although vaccination cannot protect one from being infected and pass the disease to others,” he said.
On a similar vein, Dr Annuar opined that adolescents aged between 12 and 17 should be given Covid-19 vaccine even though the country had decided against vaccinating this group of people.
The Nangka assemblyman reasoned that since it has proven that vaccination has reduced the number of Covid-19 patients needing ventilator and hospital ICU admission, it was better to vaccinate these group of adolescents.
“Personally I would like to give vaccine to this group as based on the benefits of vaccination. It is better to vaccinate as many people as possible to achieve a herd immunity or at least 90 per centof the people if possible,” he said.
Dr Annuar contented that a number of countries had already started vaccinating this group even though there were fears of the potential risks, including the possible risk of myocarditis or pericarditis.
Myocarditis is inflammation of the heart muscle and pericarditis is inflammation of the outer lining of the heart.
Recently Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Khairy Jamaluddin had said the country had decided not to give vaccine to adolescents aged between 12 and 17 for now, pending studies and clinical data. — DayakDaily
