KUALA LUMPUR (July 23): During the past one week, Malaysia saw new record highs being reported for daily number of Covid-19 vaccine doses administered at 507,050 on Thursday, daily number of Covid-19 cases of 15,573 today, and daily number of Covid-19 fatalities at 199 on Wednesday.
On a weekly basis, Malaysia administered a total of 2.4 million Covid-19 vaccine doses for the period of July 17 to 22, breaking the 500,000-mark in daily doses for the first time on Thursday (July 22) at 507,050.
In July so far, 7.83 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines have been administered, compared with the total of 5.07 million doses in June and 1.56 million in May, according to data by the Covid-19 Immunisation Task Force.
The country's total number of Covid-19 vaccine doses administered exceeded the 16 million mark with 16.02 million as of Thursday. A total of 10.92 million individuals, or 33.4% of Malaysia's population, have received at least one dose, including 5.1 million of whom are fully inoculated, representing 15.6% of the population.
Follow our Covid-19 vaccination tracker to see where we are in the race to herd immunity.
Based on the government's target of having 80% of the population fully vaccinated against Covid-19 to achieve herd immunity, note that the country will still need about 6.8 million individuals to register for the national vaccination programme.
As at today, some 19.4 million individuals have registered for vaccination, which is about three quarters of the target of 26.18 million for herd immunity. Currently, there are roughly 8.48 million individuals awaiting their first vaccination appointment.
Most new cases and deaths but R-naught lower
A total of 87,168 Covid-19 infections were detected from July 17 to 23, up 15.5% from 75,485 in the previous week. The stubbornly high number of confirmed new cases is partly the result of the continuous efforts on mass screening, particularly in the localities where Enhanced Movement Control Order is implemented.
This past week is the worst in terms of the number of Covid-19 infections since the pandemic affected the country back in March 2020.
The week ended on a new record high daily cases of 15,573 on Friday, surpassing the previous peak of 13,215 reported on July 15.
Among the new infections over the past week, about 50% of the cases were asymptomatic patients. Nearly 98% of the new cases were calssified as Category 1 (asymptomatic) and Category 2 (mild symptoms).
Despite the high numbers of new daily Covid-19 infections reported, Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah pointed out that there has been a drastic drop in serious infection case admissions (Categories Four and Five) among the elderly at Sungai Buloh Hospital.
He was quoted as saying on Tuesday that the downward trend was in line with the second phase of the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme (PICK) started in April and had begun to show early signs of effectiveness.
Category Four consists of patients with pneumonia and require oxygen support, while Category Five comprises critical patients in need of respiratory support. Further, Category 3 refers to patients with pneumonia.
Weekly fatalities also reached a new high of 990, up from 748 in the previous week, raising the coronavirus' death toll in the country to 7,718. The jump came as daily deaths touched a new high of 199 on Wednesday.
Amid the surge in new infections, the number of active cases increased to 147,386 as of today, up 29.2% from 114,053 last Friday, as weekly recoveries were much lower than new infections at 52,845. Week-on-week, recoveries improved by 27.8% from 41,349 in the previous week.
There are now 825,387 Covid-19 patients in Malaysia who have recovered from the coronavirus so far, versus cumulative infections of 980,491, representing a recovery rate of 84.18%.
According to data provided by the Ministry of Health, the basic reproduction number (R-naught or R0) for Covid-19 infections nationwide had declined to 1.07 as of July 22, from 1.20 last Thursday (July 15).
The R0 or Rt projects the average number of people that each new Covid-19 patient will infect, or what is termed as the effective reproduction number. An R0 of less than 1.0 means the infection is no longer spreading.
The highest R0 recorded this year was 1.21, on May 23.