Sending more vaccines to states will speed up inoculation, say CMs

KOTA KINABALU: Despatching more vaccines to the states will speed up vaccination in the country, enabling at least one dose to be administrated as soon as possible to its adult population.

Welcoming the move, states hope the Federal Government’s pledge can materialise in days to come so that they too can look forward to achieving herd immunity.

Chief Minister Datuk Seri Hajiji Noor said Sabah was confident the state would be prioritised in the next phase of vaccine distribution nationwide.

He said with the guarantee given by National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme coordinating minister Khairy Jamaluddin during a virtual meeting recently, Sabah would get more doses as promised.

“We are confident these promises will be met,” Hajiji said.

He added that before this, there was already a guarantee of an additional one million doses of Pfizer vaccine and 1.8 million of the CanSino vaccine.

With the number of Covid-19 cases exceeding 1,000 per day over the past four days, this increase of supply would certainly help Sabah achieve herd immunity by the targeted time frame this year, he said.

He explained that while Sabah’s vaccination rate had been reported as the lowest, the latest figures did not reflect the actual numbers.

Hajiji said outreach programmes were being conducted every day and jabs were given to people in rural and remote areas on the spot, without them having to register in the MySejahtera app.

In Melaka, Chief Minister Datuk Seri Sulaiman Md Ali said the state government welcomed the move by Covid-19 Immunisation Task Force to dispatch more vaccines.

“We are thankful for the help for Melaka to achieve herd immunity the soonest. We have several vaccination centres in the state, and the vaccination can be quickly done with the arrival of the vaccines.”

In Penang, Chief Minister Chow Kon Yeow lauded the move to supply more vaccines to the states.

“Definitely, we want to support the national vaccination programme and reach herd immunity as soon as possible.

“With more vaccine supply, we will ensure the vaccination centres will operate at the optimum pace.

“Penang hopes to complete 100% of the people receiving the first dose by early September and second dose by late September,” he said.