WITH over 20,000 teens getting jabbed daily, coupled with the delivery of more Pfizer vaccine stock, Sarawak is confident it can complete the inoculation of all 12- to 17-year-olds in the state ahead of schedule, the advisor to the state disaster management committee said.

The state’s Housing and Local Government Minister Dr Sim Kui Hian said all the adolescents will have their second dose by the third week of this month – a week earlier the initial projection of the end of the month.

Sarawak started vaccinating its adolescents, who make up 10.3% of the state’s population of slightly over two million, on September 8, becoming the first state in the country to do so.

Sim said the state is also “looking forward” to administering the booster shots for adults sometime this month, beginning with those categorised as “priority group 1” – the high-risk vulnerable group and medical frontliners.

Sim was at the Kuching international airport to oversee the delivery and storage of another shipment of Pfizer vaccines that were flown directly from its plant in Belgium. They are from the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme.

He reminded Sarawakians that vaccination was not a silver bullet in preventing infections, but that having the jab would definitely help decrease Covid-19 severity and death.

He also said the delivery of the vaccine was timely in view of the surge of cases in the state due to the Delta variant.

According to the Health Ministry, 65.5% of the state’s eligible population, or 1,846,050 people, have been fully vaccinated as of yesterday.

The number of infections in Sarawak continues to remain high, with 2,413 new cases reported today – 99.5% or 2,401 cases in category 1 (no symptoms) and 2 (mild symptoms).

That takes the number of active cases to over 36,000 with 83.1% of them in home quarantine, 13.5% in quarantine centres (PKRC) and only 3.1% hospitalised.

Of those that were hospitalised, 0.2%, or 58 cases, are in category 3 (in intensive care units but unventilated, while 0.1%, or 45 cases in the most serious category, category 4, which requires ventilation or mechanical assistance to breathe.

Kuching, with 787 new cases, remains the district with the highest number of new cases, followed by Miri, 307 cases, Sibu (186), Sri Aman (123) and Bintulu (117).

Only two districts out of the state’s 40, Dalat and Tanjung Manis, did not report any cases.

There were also 26 deaths due to Covid-19 with the deaths happening between September 16 and yesterday.

The total of 15 deaths on Wednesday was the highest one-day toll, with six of the deaths in Kuching, five in Sibu, and two each in Miri and Sarikei.

The victims were aged between 53 and 88. – October 1, 2021.