8.2% of children given first Covid vaccine jab

A total of 289,912 children or 8.2% of those aged five to 11 had received a first dose of Covid-19 vaccine under the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme for Children (PICKids) as of yesterday.

According to the CovidNow website, a total of 13,607,475 individuals or 57.8% of the adult population have received a booster dose, while 22,940,521 or 97.5% have completed their vaccination.

Some 98.7% or 23,217,374 individuals have received at least one dose of vaccine.

A total of 164,572 vaccine doses were administered yesterday, with 45,251 as first doses, including 42,659 doses for children, 1,637 as second shots and 117,684 as booster jabs.

This brings the cumulative number of vaccine doses administered under PICK to 65,524,828.

According to the health ministry’s GitHub portal, 21 deaths due to Covid-19 were recorded yesterday: nine in Sabah, four each in Johor and Perak, two in Kedah and one each in Kelantan and Negeri Sembilan.

Health director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah today said that the country’s infectivity rate (Rt) stood at 1.32 yesterday, with Labuan recording the highest Rt value of 1.96, followed by Sarawak (1.56) and Sabah (1.51).