KUALA LUMPUR (Aug 8): A total of 8.498 million people or 36.3% of Malaysia’s adult population (18 year old and above) are fully inoculated against the coronavirus as of yesterday (Saturday, Aug 7).

Meanwhile, 7.038 million people or 30% of the adult population have received at least one dose of vaccine.

In Malaysia, 15.536 million people or 66.4% of the country’s adult population have received at least one jab of vaccines.

The country has administered a total of 24.034 million doses of Covid-19 vaccine on Aug 7 – since the country’s vaccination plan started in late February, according to the latest updates on Twitter today by Special Committee for Ensuring Access to Covid-19 Vaccine Supply (JKJAV), citing data from the Covid-19 Immunisation Task Force (CITF).

The total number of jabs given has increased nearly three times from 8.347 million on July 1, as the daily vaccination rate has been above 400,000 vaccine doses for two consecutive weeks.

On Aug 7, the country administered 425,698 doses of Covid-19 vaccines compared with 447,035 the day before. Of the jabs given, 186,035 jabs were given to the first-dose recipients and 239,663 jabs went to the second-dose recipients.

Johor recorded the highest number of daily first doses yesterday at 34,212, followed by Sabah (28,299), Selangor (25,845) and Kedah (20,257).

For second doses, Selangor led the country with 73,152, Kuala Lumpur (39,019) and Sarawak (22,907).

Finance Minister Tengku Datuk Seri Zafrul Tengku Abdul Aziz, who is also the Coordinating Minister of National Recovery Plan (NRP), announced that the government will be using the daily number of ‘symptomatic hospital admission cases’ in Category 3, 4 and 5 as a new threshold indicator.

The daily number of ‘symptomatic hospital admission cases’ will replace the daily number of confirmed Covid-19 cases as the indicator when more than half of the adult population in the states that are in the NPR Phase One are fully inoculated. 

The Klang Valley, Johor, Negeri Sembilan, Kedah and Melaka are the states still in Phase One currently, while others have moved into Phase Two with more relaxed movement control order.

As of Aug 6, 6.14 million people (or 99.6% of the population) in Klang Valley have received at least one dose of Covid-19 vaccine, including 2.94 million or 47.7% who are fully inoculated.

Tengku Zafrul said the assessment to transition from Phase One to the next phases was still subject to all other indicators, including intensive care unit (ICU) capacity utilisation rate and the vaccination rate of the adult population.

These states can only move to Phase 2 if they achieve a threshold value of symptomatic hospital admissions (6.1 per 100,000 people) and the ICU usage capacity (moderate), the minister said in a statement.

Malaysia’s new Covid-19 cases dropped to 19,257 yesterday, after staying above the 20,000 mark for two straight days.

Despite the fall in new infections, active cases, which carry high transmission risk, continued to climb to 224,120 from 221,396 previously.

Another 210 deaths were recorded yesterday, lifting the country's total fatalities due to the pandemic to 10,389. The Health Ministry also said 1,097 patients were being treated in intensive care units (ICUs), including 575 who needed respiratory assistance.

The country’s cumulative Covid-19 infections stood at 1.24 million.