COVID-19 vaccine update: New COVID-19 deaths are mostly fully vaccinated?

In the latest COVID-19 vaccine update, we will talk about Sinovac Phase 3 trials on children below 12 years old in Malaysia and how to solve your MySejahtera vaccine certificate issue. In recent weeks, the number of new COVID-19 deaths involving fully vaccinated is said to be more than those who are not vaccinated. Does this mean that the vaccines don’t make a difference? This and more in the latest video.

Boosters for Sinovac recipients

Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin has announced that individuals who are fully vaccinated with Sinovac will get Pfizer as their booster shot. This will begin with senior citizens aged 60 years old and above, and the booster shot will be administered 3 months after receiving the second dose of the Sinovac vaccine. As a comparison, individuals who are fully vaccinated with Pfizer will receive the Pfizer booster 6 months after the second injection. Individuals who can’t take mRNA vaccines may be offered Sinovac or AstraZeneca as their booster shot.

Solving MySejahtera certificate issues

If you’re already fully vaccinated but still couldn’t get your vaccine certificate, MySejahtera has provided several steps to solve the vaccine certificate issue. If you haven’t done so, you are urged to verify your personal details by going to the MySejahtera home screen > COVID19 vaccination and then tap on your name. If the details are not verified, you will be asked to confirm your name, IC or passport number.

Another possibility is that you could be registered as dependent under another MySejahtera account. To solve this, you would need to remove yourself as a dependent before registering your own MySejahtera personal account. You can follow the steps here.

Deaths among fully vaccinated vs unvaccinated

According to the COVIDNow dashboard, the number of new COVID-19 deaths reported in the past two weeks are among the fully vaccinated (46.5%) is slightly more than deaths among the unvaccinated (45.2%). Based on the percentage alone, some conclude that vaccines don’t make a difference but we need to look at the overall picture.

About 76% of COVID-19 deaths are among senior citizens aged 60 and above, while about 23% of deaths are among adults aged 18 to 59 years old. We can see that 99% of deaths are among adults aged at least 18 years old and less than 1% of deaths are from children below 18 years old.

If we look at the vaccination rate for adults, 95% have been fully vaccinated while 5% are unvaccinated. When the absolute numbers are compared, there are 373 deaths among 22 million fully vaccinated adults versus 363 deaths among 1 million non-vaccinated adults in the past two weeks (as of 26th September 2021).

This clearly illustrates that the risk of death due to COVID-19 is significantly higher among the unvaccinated. On top of that, Malaysia is seeing a gradual decline in the number of new daily COVID-19 cases, hospitalisations, ICU and ventilator usage after the majority of people have been fully vaccinated.

More COVID-19 resources from MOH

For more information on the COVID-19 situation in Malaysia, you can refer to the COVIDNow dashboard which is updated daily. It provides the latest vaccination figures for the national immunisation programme as well as new COVID-19 cases, hospitalisation and deaths in a clear user interface.

If you want to view the raw data, you can view the line list of COVID-19 deaths which contains the vaccination status, type of vaccination, date of vaccination, comorbidity status and age on the Ministry of Health’s GitHub. Also shared on GitHub is the list of adverse effects following immunisation (AEFI) including serious cases.

This also marks the final episode of the COVID-19 vaccine Malaysia update series. From all of us at SoyaCincau.com, thank you so much for the support!

Take note that we are still not out of the woods yet, so please continue to take all necessary precautions including physical distancing and wearing a face mask in crowded public spaces to stay safe.