Malaysians commend the country’s health workers for reaching the target of 500,000 daily Covid-19 vaccinations yesterday, following the announcement that 507,750 Covid-19 vaccinations were given out yesterday.
This is the only good news so far from the very depressing development of the Covid-19 pandemic, with the country on the tenth consecutive day with five-digit numbers for daily new Covid-19 cases while deaths and suicides mount to unprecedented numbers. When emergency was declared on January 11,2021, there were 2,433 new Covid-19 cases and 4 Covid-19 deaths on January 10 – but yesterday, there were 13,034 cases and 134 deaths!
Despite the good news on the vaccination front, we have only achieved over 15% of people in Malaysia who had been fully vaccinated with two doses of vaccine and some 33% of people who had been given one dose of vaccine after four months of the national vaccination rollout.
We must step up the momentum and even raise the vaccination target to one million doses a day to save Malaysians from the heavy toll of high number of deaths from the “pandemic of the unvaccinated”.
Then Malaysians have something to celebrate for the 64th National Day on August 31 and the 58th Malaysia Day on Sept. 16, as from the present rate of infections, Malaysia is heading towards a gloomy period with cumulative total of over 1.3 million Covid-19 cases and over 11,000 Covid-19 deaths on August 31 and over 1.5 million Covid-19 cases and over 13,000 Covid-19 deaths on Sept. 16.
In fact, if we can achieve the million doses of vaccine a day in the month of August, we might obviate the most despondent and depressing development of Covid-19 pandemic on Sept. 16.
But a word of caution – vaccine is not the silver bullet to end all problems of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Brazil and Spain have higher vaccination rates than Malaysia, both for one or two doses of vaccine, but both have higher daily new Covid-19 infection cases yesterday than Malaysia – Brazil 49,603 cases, Spain 29,535 and Malaysia 13,034. Brazil also has higher number of daily Covid-19 deaths than Malaysia yesterday but not Spain: Brazil 1,444 deaths, Spain 28 deaths and Malaysia 134 deaths.
(Media Statement (3) by DAP MP for Iskandar Puteri Lim Kit Siang in Kuala Lumpur on Friday, 23rd July 2021)