Covid-19: Vaccinations, boosters helped reduce hospital admissions, ICU use and fatalities

KUALA LUMPUR: Vaccinations and booster dose uptake have helped the country to do better in dealing with the Omicron wave, by reducing the number of hospital admissions, intensive care unit (ICU) cases, and deaths, says Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah.

The Health director-general said the situation was different when the country was hit by the Delta wave as the daily cases then reached more than 10,000 and the main indicators of Covid-19 were also high.

"At that time, many people still had not received the Covid-19 vaccine. It is different when the Omicron wave hits the country this time,” he said in a post on his official Twitter account.

According to the Covid-19 infographic shared in the post that compared five key indicators, 11,079 new daily cases were recorded on July 13, 2021 during the Delta wave compared to 11,034 new cases recorded on Monday (Feb 7) during the Omicron wave.

On hospital admissions, 1,988 cases were recorded on July 13, 2021 compared with 1,253 cases recorded on Monday, while a total of 1,436 cases were admitted to the ICU on July 13, 2021 compared to Monday’s 135 cases.

The daily death toll on July 13, 2021 was 193 while nine deaths were recorded on Monday.

Based on the same infographic, the vaccination rate on July 13, 2021, showed that there were 3,940,548 fully vaccinated individuals, compared with 25,723,208 individuals recorded on Monday.

Also as of Monday, a total of 12,473,139 individuals had received their booster jabs. - Bernama