AFTER more than a year fighting the horrific Covid-19 pandemic, I believe that we have turned the corner. There is now light at the end of the tunnel, despite the grim figures of new daily infections which still hover in the four-digit realm, albeit at a decline.

The reason why I am upbeat is because our national immunisation plan (NIP) is picking up pace. Just yesterday, minister in charge of the NIP, Khairy Jamaluddin announced that 150,000 doses were administered yesterday and that we are on track to hitting our daily 200,000 target soon.

The announcements came on the back of the weekend announcement by Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin that over 300 new vaccination centres (PPVs) will soon open nationwide. And by August, the country is expected to receive 16 million doses of vaccines.

At this rate, we are expected to reach herd immunity in December or even earlier, according to the Health Minister. It was previously thought that this would only be achieved in March 2022.

The speed at which the NIP has been rolled out could not have been possible without the aggressive push by the government to open up more PPVs, making it easier for the public to reach these centres. Before this, there have been reports of no-shows due to access problems, especially for the elderly in rural areas.

The government’s relentless effort to secure more vaccines should be lauded. We are catching up with our neighbours, if not overtaking them. Even Covid-19 vaccine-producing Thailand only started its mass vaccination plan on Monday amid soaring new infections from a third wave in the kingdom.

Kudos to Muhyiddin who pushed to make the inoculation process more accessible to Malaysians by opening up more PPVs and securing more vaccines, including taking part in the clinical trial of a new vaccine brand by Shenzhen Kangtai Biological Products Co Ltd.

The government has picked up the rumblings on the ground to speed up the NIP and acted on it. Countries like Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain which are far ahead in their vaccination rollouts have seen “normalcy” return as infections dip to negligible levels.

Covid-19 vaccination works and the government knows this. With the government’s aggressive rollout of the NIP, there’s now light at the end of the tunnel. – June 10, 2021.

* Sheila Sabaratnam reads The Malaysian Insight. 

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.