MIRI, June 18: Even though Sarawak is the leading State in Malaysia for Covid-19 vaccination rate as of June 16, it will not rest on its laurels until 2.2 million eligible Sarawakians are fully vaccinated.
Deputy Chief Minister Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah Embas emphasised that there are still rooms for improvement as Sarawak wants to ensure all eligible Sarawakians are fully vaccinated by August this year.
“We have organised our infrastructure since two months ago and now we are in very active mode of rolling out our vaccination programme statewide,” he said when chairing the Miri Divisional Disaster Management Committee (Miri DDMC) meeting at a hotel here today.
Uggah, who is also State Disaster Management Committee (SDMC) chairman, shared that Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation Khairy Jamaluddin had called him yesterday to congratulate Sarawak on its achievement and was amazed with the speed of vaccination.
Sarawak had yesterday administered 55,248 doses of vaccine, the highest achieved in the nation. A day earlier, the vaccination rate had hit 49,000.
“So I thanked him and told him to send us more vaccines. Khairy said more shipments are coming our way,” he said.
Uggah credited the achievement to the strong support, team spirit and sacrifices of everyone involved, in particular, the frontliners.
“We are also very thankful to our Chief Minister Datuk Patinggi Abang Johari Tun Openg who has been very supportive. He has even set aside funds for us to buy our own vaccine.
“We have led the way in the country and we all should be very proud of our accomplishment.”
However, Uggah also noted the gigantic and important tasks ahead as vaccination is the key to reaching herd immunity, protecting lives of people and enabling Sarawak to move forward with its exit plan.
“To us, we see that vaccination is the way out of the danger of this Covid-19 pandemic such as in countries like the US and UK in which cases and mortalities have greatly decreased.”
On the performance in Miri Division managed by Transport Minister Datuk Lee Kim Shin, he congratulated Miri DDMC as many vaccination centres have been set up with vaccination capacity to hit 16,800 per day.
“The mobile teams are also going into the interiors to reach out to even the Penans,” he added.
Also present were Assistant Local Government and Housing Minister Datu Dr Penguang Manggil, Assistant Tourism Minister Datuk Sebastian Ting, and Sibuti MP Lukanisman Awang Sauni while Public Utility Minister Datuk Seri Dr Stephen Rundi, Assistant Minister of Women, Family and Childhood Development Datuk Rosey Yunus and Telang Usan assemblyman Dennis Ngau joined through video conferencing. — DayakDaily
