Dr. Sim Kui Hian warns of danger of Delta variant

suppadmin | August 17, 2021

Local government and Housing Minister, Dato’ Sri Dr. Sim Kui Hian called for stringent SOP as Delta variants has caused an increase of workplace clusters and only those who had completed 2 doses of COVID-19 vaccination are allowed to operate and work, especially in confined premises. 73% cases of Delta variant were from Kuching Division (Kuching District, Bau District and Lundu District).

He said the Delta variant of the covid 19 has now been widespread and presents a major threat in the community even those who are fully vaccinated.

He said of the figures on Monday, 330 people who have completed two doses of the covid 19 vaccine were infected out of the 1,120 reported.

70 of them were jabbed with a dose and 70 not vaccinated. Of the number of positive cases, 171 below 18 were tested positive.

To-date, 653,259 (80.9%) eligible adults had received full vaccination, while 166,415 are still waiting for Dose 2 this month. A total of 1,819,674 eligible adults are expected to complete full vaccination at the end of this month.

Dr. Sim urged all to avoid high risk areas and to maintain a social distance.

Based on data, only those who have received full vaccination (2 doses) will be protected from getting serious diseases due to COVID-19 but it is still advisable to not go out unnecessarily and follow SOP at all times.

Those eligible but yet to be vaccinated, he urged them to walk into any public PPV for vaccination. And the next phase is for those below 18 years old (29% of Sarawak population) to be vaccinated, starting with 15-17 year old soon. Currently, only the Pfizer vaccine is approved for children above 12 years old.

He said while we continue to step up with more resources for the Quarantine Centre, all of us have to continue to play our role and do our part in slowing down the transmission, especially Delta variant which is very infectious (faster, earlier) by aerosol.