KUALA LUMPUR – The government will cease the use of herd immunity concept, and focus on vaccinating the whole population of the country.
Minister of Health, Khairy Jamaluddin Abu Bakar said that the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme (PICK) for Adolescent is very important for the country to curb the spread of the virus.
“Let’s stop looking at herd immunity. We need to ensure the widest vaccination programme coverage possible, thus the PICK Adolescent is very important.
“We are looking at the clinical trial data issued by Pfizer to vaccinate children below the age of 12.
“It is not enough to have merely 80 to 90 percent of the adults receiving vaccine as the children are not vaccinated,” he said during the Dewan Rakyat sitting today.
According to Khairy, Covid-19 experts have stopped using the concept since the spread of the Delta variant.
“When we reach 90 percent of the adult population, the whole population’s coverage would be at about 60 percent. We will proceed with PICK Adolescent, but, we have also decided that interstate travel would not cause cases to increase, but mass assembly would cause the spread of the disease,” he added.
Last Tuesday, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob said that PICK has successfully reached 80 percent of the adult population in the country.
According to the data on COVIDNOW portal, Malaysia targets to vaccinate 80 percent of its population, or 26,125,920 individuals by 16 December. -MalaysiaGazette
