KUALA LUMPUR: As some 97 per cent of adults in the Klang Valley have received at least their first Covid-19 vaccine dose, attention will now shift to the effectiveness of the vaccination exercise, based on the number of hospitalisations and deaths.
Covid-19 National Immunisation Programme (NIP) Coordinating Minister Khairy Jamaluddin said improvements in the number of cases were expected in the next two weeks as more people would be fully vaccinated in Kuala Lumpur and Selangor, the current epicentre of the pandemic in the country.
"Even with the Delta variants, the numbers may still be high. But what we would like to see and hope to be the outcome from the vaccination, is that the key numbers need to be looking at - death rates, utilisation of ICU (intensive care unit) beds and hospitalisation - come down.
"That is going to be the indicators we want to look at, as far as the success of the NIP is concerned," he told a Press conference today.
He said on Aug 1, out of the 106 Category 5 patients (with severe symptoms on ventilation support), 96 of them were not vaccinated. Forty-seven patients from category 4 were not vaccinated, while 18 others received vaccines. The trend is the same for other categories.
"I think we are getting to the peak, as far as the Klang Valley is concerned, maybe another week or so, and then hopefully reach inflection point," he said, citing a drop in hospitalisations in Labuan and Sarawak following an increase in vaccinations among the population.
He added that in Singapore, despite the surge in Covid-19 infections, patients among those fully vaccinated did not fall into the later categories of Covid-19.
Khairy, who is Science, Technology and Innovation Minister earlier said 37.5 per cent of the adult population in the Klang Valley were now fully vaccinated against Covid-19.
He however said more data was needed to interpret the effectiveness of the vaccination against the number of Covid-19 cases, especially those involving the highly-transmissible Delta variant, in particular those who were unvaccinated, partially vaccinated and fully vaccinated.
He said apart from vaccination, it was crucial to continue stringent measures including wearing masks, maintaining physical distancing, good personal hygiene and proper ventilation at premises.
"We must not drop our guard as far as SOPs (Standard Operating Procedure) are concerned. Many countries, that have previously relaxed the facemask regulation, have reverted to the mask mandate."
A mop up campaign has started in the Klang Valley, which allowed walk-in vaccinations for adult residents who had yet to receive the first dose and mobile outreach programme in the outskirts.
Op Surge Capacity was carried out in the Klang Valley from July 26 until yesterday to further boost the number of people inoculated against Covid-19.