KUCHING: France lifted mandatory mask-wearing outdoors last Thursday and ended an eight-month nightly coronavirus curfew on 20 June, with some exceptions. Masks are still required outdoors on public transport, in stadiums and other crowded places.
France was registering about 3,900 new virus cases a day then, down from 35,000 a day during its peak in March-April.
French Prime Minister Jean Castex said those positive evolutions were due to the mobilisation of the French and its vaccination campaign.
France’s progress is reflective of the positive development in the immunisation efforts to achieve herd immunity against COVID-19 among the developed nations.
The vaccination programme in Malaysia has been gaining traction in the past month, with the highest number of vaccinations recorded in Sarawak.
Sarawak Chief Minister Datuk Amar Abang Johari Tun Openg stated on 14 June that the vaccination programme should be wrapped up by August, presumably in anticipation of a state election after the national state of emergency ends on 1 August 2021.
The state has 60 days to prepare for an election after the emergency ends, meaning it can be held either in September or October, to give ample time for the new government to table and pass its budget for 2022.
However, according to Senior Fellow of the National Professors Council, Dr Jeniri Amir, before voters can go to the polls, new daily COVID-19 cases need to be reduced to a reasonable figure of between 100 to 200 cases, and between 70 to 80 percent of the population of Sarawak need to have been vaccinated.
As at 20 June, more than 1.5 million people or 73.9 percent have registered themselves for vaccination in the state.
More than 15.4 million people had registered for vaccination throughout the country, with more than 4.2 million people receiving the first doses, and more than 1.6 million people receiving their second doses, which means that 5.8 million doses had been given as at 21 June.
Malaysia recorded the highest daily vaccination of 215,876 doses last Tuesday.
The number of Malaysians being vaccinated every day is showing an uptrend, with daily doses exceeding 200,000, and at this rate, the target to vaccinate all by December seems plausible.
However an epidemiologist from Universiti Malaya, Prof. Datuk Dr Awang Bulgiba Awang Mahmud had on several occasions mentioned, including in his discussion with Dr Jeniri on TVS’ own programme ‘Twenty30’ recently, that the COVID-19 global pandemic will not end anytime soon, maybe next year.
The reasons that Dr Awang, who is an advisor to the Special Committee on COVID-19 Vaccine Supply Access Guarantee, put forward were the slow pace of vaccination programmes, especially in the developing countries, the emergence of variants, and the anti-vaccine movement.
At the end of last year, the developed countries took steps to accelerate their vaccination programmes to the extent that their governments bought vaccines at an amount that were more than what were needed by their countries. Now we know why the vaccines were slow in coming to developing nations like ours.
Dr Awang gave the examples of Canada and the United Kingdom (UK), that had bought vaccines that were five times more than the number of their populations. What they did or are going to do with the surplus vaccines is anyone’s guess.
The emergence of new coronavirus variants that can cause sicknesses that are potentially more serious and infectious is worrying the World Health Organisation (WHO).
The Telegraph in Britain reported last Friday that the WHO had warned that the Indian/Delta variant of coronavirus is becoming dominant globally.
Public Health England data revealed on 19 June that Delta variant infections in the UK jumped by 78 per cent in just one week, that is 33,630, to 75,953, with general coronavirus infections now at their highest levels in the UK since mid-February.
UK was the first developed country to have started the vaccination program in December 2020.
In about three months after the program began, studies in the UK show that those who had been vaccinated have a lower risk of being hospitalised or even dying.
In fact, the number of admissions into the hospitals among this group of people decreased by 90 percent.
The UK experience shows that vaccination is clearly very effective. At the moment, more than 50% of the population had received the second doses of their vaccines, and the economy can now be opened gradually, even though there are new variants.
Another issue that might slow down the immunisation programme is the anti-vaccine groups.
According to the statistics given by Dr Awang, a state in Malaysia (he did not mention which state) had done a survey on 250,000 people which found that 65 percent were willing to get vaccinated, 17 percent were reluctant, and 18 percent refused.
Just two days ago, Sarawak Education, Science and Technology Research Assistant Minister, Dr Annuar Rapaee said more than 150 teachers in Sibu had refused to receive vaccines. The reasons for this are still being investigated.
Vaccination is one way for us to exit from the pandemic. Even the Yang Dipertuan Agong himself had reiterated that vaccination is the main exit strategy.
There is so much to be said about what the government and the relevant authorities can do, but it is important for the people to give their support and react positively to the steps and programmes that are being conducted by the government to ensure that we can exit from the pandemic now.
However, when a country has completed its immunisation programme, it does not mean that the world is already safe.
It is not known yet how long the vaccines can protect us after vaccination. These are all new vaccines. The experts do not know how long the vaccines are efficacious.
Vaccines provide the defence and immunity in the body for at least a year. There is a possibility that it can last for two years, but that is not for sure because vaccination for COVID-19 was started only last December.
According to Dr Awang, what is known is that when someone has received the vaccines, the amount of antibodies and the level of immunity can deflect COVID-19 infections.
The two-dose vaccines will not protect us from infections, but the effect of the infections will not be serious. When we have been vaccinated, we will still be subjected to the coronavirus infections, but we can recover faster.
Even though we have been vaccinated, we still need non-pharmaceutical intervention, such as wearing face masks, practising social distancing, washing hands, and basically taking care of ourselves until we achieve herd immunity and the country records very low infection cases.
We may see the number of COVID-19 cases drop drastically by end of the year, depending on the level of cooperation afforded by every single person to the government’s efforts.
In the final analysis, as Dr Awang Bulgiba rightly said, the onus lies with the individual. We look after our own health because this is our responsibility to ourselves, our families, and others around us. If we are not part of the solution, we are part of the problem. No one is safe until everyone is safe.
