‘Speed the essence in avoiding virus mutation’
KUCHING: The speed in vaccinating all 2.2 million Sarawakins is critical to win the war against the Covid-19 pandemic due to the possible mutation of the virus, says Minister of Local Government and Housing Dato Sri Dr Sim Kui Hian.
“If we allow Covid-19 to continue to spread within the community, the virus might mutate and result in new variants emerging in the state. That’s why the speed in vaccinating the public is crucial to overcome the outbreak,” he said.
Dr Sim, who is advisor to the State Disaster Management Committee, warned that new types of vaccine might be required if the people fails to be vaccinated quick enough.
Contrary to the perception of guarding oneself against Covid19, he said the main purpose of the vaccination campaign was to curb the spread of the virus within the community and to achieve the herd immunity once 70 per cent of the population is inoculated.
“The vaccination programme is a society-wide approach to handle the outbreak. Our priority is to break the chain of transmission and once we have achieved that, we can prevent the virus from mutating into new variants. Only then, the vaccination can be taken as about protecting oneself from being infected,” said Dr Sim during a Facebook live session hosted by Kuching South City Council (MBKS) mayor Dato Wee Hong Seng. Sibu Municipal Council chairman Clarence Ting also attended the online session.
Dr Sim assured the public that Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine had been proven to be overwhelmingly effective against the coronavirus around the world and the public must give their fullest cooperation to achieve herd immunity.
“As reported before, we need 70 per cent of our population aged 18 and above to be vaccinated.”
Dr Sim said he would leave it to the state 11-member Covid-19 vaccine advisory group on the proposal to vaccinate those 16 to17 years old to enable the state to reach the target of inoculating 70 per cent of its population.
“It is a misunderstanding to think the coronavirus outbreak could be tackled with a limited number of people taking the vaccine. There is no point when the majority are still infected when only a small group of the people are vaccinated.”
He also said getting vaccinated did not guarantee one from not being infected with the virus but it would result in less severe conditions if a person is infected.
“And to whether we should open our borders once 70 per cent of the population is vaccinated, one of factors we should consider is the risk of importing new variants of Covid19 into the state.”
On a separate matter, Dr Sim said had been feeling fine for the past 24 hours after being administered with PfizerBioNTech vaccine on Friday. He reassured the public that experiencing mild symptoms within 24 hours of vaccination was perfectly normal.
He also assured it was safe for those who suffered from heart attacks, undergoing kidney dialysis process or cancer survivors to be vaccinated as they belong to the high-risk groups.
Dr Sim is optimistic that more Covid-19 vaccines would be available soon in the market to rein in the pandemic. The Ministry of Health is in the midst of studying another vaccine, Sinovac, that arrived in the country yesterday from China.
If we allow Covid-19 to continue to spread within the community, the virus might mutate and result in new variants emerging in the state. That’s why the speed in vaccinating the public is crucial to overcome the outbreak.
— Dato Sri Dr Sim Kui Hian, Minister of Local Government and Housing