KUALA LUMPUR (Aug 18): Malaysia’s fully vaccinated population increased to 11.4 million or 34.9% yesterday (Aug 17), from 11.06 million a day earlier, according to the latest updates on Twitter today by the country’s Special Committee for Ensuring Access to Covid-19 Vaccine Supply (JKJAV). 

The data, which was cited from the Covid-19 Immunisation Task Force (CITF), showed that Malaysia had as of yesterday administered the first dose of vaccine to 53.4% of the country’s population, representing 17.44 million people. 

Meanwhile, the country’s daily Covid-19 vaccine doses administered ticked up to 525,111 on Aug 17 from 501,776 the previous day, bringing the total number of vaccine shots given to 28.84 million so far since the vaccination programme started early this year.

In terms of the 525,111 vaccine doses administered yesterday, the daily figure comprised 184,972 first-dose recipients and 340,139 second-dose recipients. 

Based on the government’s target of having 80% of the population fully vaccinated against Covid-19 to achieve herd immunity, the country will need to have about 26 million people completing their two-dose vaccination. 

Yesterday, 19,631 new Covid-19 cases were reported nationwide, down from 19,740 cases a day earlier — the second day of decline after daily cases stayed above the 20,000 mark for five consecutive days. 

The latest cases were detected from the screening of 149,750 individuals across the country, indicating a positivity rate of 13.11%, according to a statement by Health director-general (DG) Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah yesterday.

The DG’s statement also highlighted that 43 new Covid-19 cases of the Delta variant were detected in Malaysia between Aug 10 and 17, lifting the total to 467 cases in the country. 

Of the 43 new Delta variant cases, 38 were found in Selangor and another five in Kuala Lumpur, according to the statement. 

The statement further said there were no new cases of other variants of concern for now.