IPOH: Perak hopes to ramp up its immunisation rate as more Covid-19 vaccines are scheduled to arrive starting next week.

       Mentri Besar Datuk Saarani Mohamad said the state was scheduled to receive 688,000 doses of the vaccine this month, with 147,000 doses expected to arrive next week.

       “If everything is according to schedule, Perak is expected to record a vaccination rate of between 25,000 and 30,000 (doses) daily.

       “This can be achieved as there are now 101 vaccination centres in the state, which includes 70 private clinics and hospitals,” he said after visiting a mobile vaccination programme at the Kampung Chadak Orang Asli village in Hulu Kinta near here yesterday.

       Saarani said the vaccination programme in the state had shown good progress, with the increasing number of daily injections.

       “The state has recorded 14,402 daily jabs on June 30. The number increased to 15,918 on July 1, and 19,341 the following day.

       “The momentum is spurred by various state initiatives, including aggressive outreach programmes since May 11.

       “We plan to add more private hospitals and clinics to the vaccination programme to increase the capacity,” he said.

       On Perak being placed under Phase Two of the National Recovery Plan starting today, Saarani said the state had met all the targeted threshold values.

       “The average daily cases cannot be more than 307, and we have fulfilled that. The utilisation of intensive care unit beds must be below 70%, and we are only using 27%.

       “Vaccination rate must be at least 10%, and we have more than that.

       “The faster we get more people vaccinated and have fewer cases, the sooner we can go to the third phase,” he said.