SARAWAK will only vaccinate children from the age of 12 against Covid-19, if the state fails to achieve its 70% target for herd immunity.

The state hopes to achieve that goal by vaccinating all eligible Sarawakians above 18, said state Housing and Local Government Minister Dr Sim Kui Hian.

“If we still can’t achieve more than 70%, now we can safely vaccinate 12-18 year-olds to achieve herd immunity,” said Sim, a key adviser to the state disaster management committee.

He said this in reference to yesterday’s announcement by director-general of health Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah that the Drug Control Authority (DCA) had approved the usage of Pfizer-BioNTech’s Comirnaty vaccine for children aged 12 years old and above.

Sim said the enormity of the state’s vaccination programme was that it would have to vaccinate 99% of the 1.2million adults just to achieve 70% herd immunity.

He said though the severity of the infection and deaths were more prevalent among the elderly, the young have been identified as suffering “more and more” from the long Covid.

“Looking at the trend this year, up to 20% of Covid-19 cases are (of people) below 20 years-old.

“(The) young may not have severe symptoms but with more and more long Covid cases being identified, the damage to health by Covid-19 to our young people remains unknown.”

Sim said conditional approval given to the single dose vaccines produced by China’s CanSino Biologics and the US’s Johnson & Johnson (J&J) would have “enormous implications and impact” on Sarawak and its vaccination drive, particularly in its vast rural areas.

The state in April had requested the federal government supply the state with 600,000 to 800,000 doses of the Chinese vaccine.

Sim said the single dose vaccine would greatly speed up and complete the state’s vaccination drive.

Earlier today, Chief Minister Abang Johari Openg told government media accompanying him on an inspection of the newly operational vaccine delivery centre (PPV) at Universiti Malaysia Sarawak that the state will achieve herd immunity by August.

Abang Johari said the target could be achieved by ramping up vaccination delivery in rural areas. – June 16, 2021.