“Any Booster Is Better Than No Booster”: Get Your 3rd Dose Before March Or Lose Fully-Vaxxed Status

By Quinny Tan  •  09 Feb 2022 in News

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Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin has reminded the Malaysian public that all senior citizens aged 60 years and above as well as recipients aged 18 years and above of the full dose of Sinovac Covid-19 vaccine, need to take the booster shot to maintain their ‘complete vaccination’ status before March 1, 2022.

According to him, there are one million senior citizens, or 32% of them in the country, who have yet to take their Covid-19 vaccine booster dose.

He reiterated that a booster dose provides protection against Covid-19 infection especially from severe complications.

“Since they insist on getting Sinovac although we encouraged getting Pfizer and AstraZeneca booster shots with better efficacy, we will allow them to have Sinovac for their booster.

“Any booster is better than no booster. We still have some in stock and will provide them on a first-come, first-served basis.”

Khairy pointed out that unvaccinated individuals are nine times more likely to be infected and 62 times more likely to die of coronavirus compared to individuals who have taken their booster dose.

KJ added that the risk of severe infection is also higher among senior citizens, noting that 57.3% of the Covid-19 death toll of 32,034 involved senior citizens.

He said these groups would have the rest of February to get their booster shots and urged them, especially the senior citizens, to do so in the wake of the Omicron variant.

“If they do not, they will lose their fully vaccinated status on March 1. Their digital certificate on MySejahtera will be white instead of yellow. There will also be restrictions at the country’s exit points,” he said.

As of 6 February, some 12.36 million people or 52.8% of the Malaysian population aged 18 years and above had received their booster shot — equivalent to nearly half of the 25.72 million (aged 12 years and above) — who had completed two doses of Covid-19 vaccines.

Meanwhile, 33,599 or 1% of children aged five to 12 years have had their first jab.

Malaysia’s daily new cases of Covid-19 infection exceeded the 10,000 mark on Sunday, the first time since 2 October last year. The figure climbed to 11,034 as of noon on 7 February, compared with 10,089 cases on Sunday.

He stressed that a majority of the infections are asymptomatic cases or mildly symptomatic, classified as categories 1 and 2.

Meanwhile, Khairy said the government also welcomes and encourages employers to implement the practice of work from home or an attendance rotation system at their offices in an effort to create a safe environment at the workplace.