TUARAN, Aug 21 — The Sabah government is optimistic that the state will enter Phase Three of the National Recovery Plan (PPN) in early or middle of September.
Chief Minister Datuk Hajiji Noor said this would be possible as 1.4 million of the Sabah population had received at least the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine through the vaccination programme implemented statewide so far.
“InsyaAllah, we will achieve the threshold value of 40 per cent (of COVID-19 vaccination) in the next few days to move into Phase Three of the PPN. If everything goes well, Sabah’s vaccination rate will reach 60 per cent in early or by Sept 15.
“I was made to understand that, right now, approximately 60,000 vaccine shots were administered per day and this is truly overwhelming because if the rate continues, we may achieve herd immunity in October or November,” he told reporters after visiting the vaccination centre (PPV) at Dewan Sri Sulaman here today.
Earlier, Hajiji also visited the PPV at Tuaran Hospital attended a briefing session by hospital director Dr G Mohan. Also present was Sabah Health director Dr Rose Nani Mudin.
Sabah will receive an additional 560,720 doses of Pfizer, Sinovac and Cansino vaccines next week in a bid to ramp up the state’s vaccination rate to achieve herd immunity.
Hajiji said although the vaccine supply is sufficient, the state government also encouraged any government-linked companies to purchase their own supply for their employees.
So far, he said only Khazanah Sabah and Sawit Kinabalu Group had begun purchasing their own COVID-19 vaccine.
In another development, Hajiji said the state government called on the federal government to upgrade Tuaran Hospital as a specialist hospital to meet the demands of the local people.
Apart from that, he said Sabah also hoped that the federal government could build public health clinics in Sulaman and Pantai Dalit in Tuaran for the convenience of the people in the two districts.
