KUALA LUMPUR (Aug 19): Malaysia’s fully vaccinated population increased to 11.74 million or 36% yesterday (Aug 18), from 11.4 million a day earlier, according to the latest updates on Twitter today by the country’s Special Committee for Ensuring Access to Covid-19 Vaccine Supply (JKJAV).
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The data, which was cited from the Covid-19 Immunisation Task Force (CITF), showed that Malaysia had as of yesterday administered the first dose of vaccine to 54% of the country’s population, representing 17.63 million people.
Meanwhile, the country’s daily numbers of Covid-19 vaccine doses administered continued to inch up, hitting 531,114 on Aug 18 from 525,111 a day earlier, bringing the total number of vaccine shots given to recipients to 29.37 million so far since the vaccination programme started early this year.
In terms of the 531,114 vaccine doses administered yesterday, the daily figure comprised 188,474 first-dose recipients and 342,640 second-dose recipients.
Based on the government’s target of having 80% of the population fully vaccinated against Covid-19 to achieve herd immunity, the country will need to have about 26 million people completing their two-dose vaccination.
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Yesterday, new Covid-19 cases topped 22,000 cases for the first time, hitting 22,242 cases nationwide, ending the two-day streak of declining cases.
The previous record high daily cases of 21,668 was posted on Aug 12. Yesterday was the first time daily cases topped 22,000, and the sixth time that they passed 20,000
Active cases, which carry high transmission risks, rose further to 254,484 — up 24.95% from 203,664 just two weeks ago on Aug 3 — as new recoveries of 19,680 lagged behind new infections.
There were also 225 fatalities reported linked to the coronavirus — involving 198 Malaysians and 27 foreigners — which raised the country’s Covid-19 death toll to 13,302.-The Edge Market