A nurse stirs a nasal swab in testing solution after administering a Covid-19 test. — AFP photo
KUCHING (Aug 5): Sarawak’s Covid-19 fatalities dropped to 2.23 deaths per day last month despite the Delta variant being detected, said State Disaster Management Committee (SDMC) advisor Dato Sri Dr Sim Kui Hian.
The Local Government and Housing Minister said Sarawak’s daily death rate has dropped steadily as the level of vaccination increased.
“In May, the state had 5.35 deaths per day followed by June, 4.87 deaths per day, and July 2.23 deaths per day,” he said in a Facebook post last night.
“Though Sarawak started small, we scale up fast in vaccination in June.”
While pointing out the severity of Covid-19 cases is divided into five categories — with Category 4 and 5 requiring oxygen and intubation, respectively — he revealed less than 8 per cent of the total infections in Sarawak required intubation.
“For those who are Covid-19 positive last month after vaccination, following observation, which is consistent with vaccines maturation, that 14 days after Dose 2 offers better protection,” he explained.
According to Dr Sim, the infection rate is 50.45 per cent between zero and 20 days after Dose 1.
The infection rate reduced further to 30.41 per cent between 21 and 35 days after Dose 2, he said.
“After more than 35 days post-vaccination, chances of getting infected are reduced to 19.14 per cent,” he added.
Dr Sim also announced that another batch of Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccines had arrived at the Kuching International Airport yesterday.
According to the Special Committee on Covid-19 Vaccine Supply (JKJAV), 1,734,840 first dose vaccines had been administered in Sarawak as of Aug 2.