NATIONAL RECOVERY HINGES ON VACCINATION, LOOK OUT FOR THESE SUCCESS FACTORS

National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme Coordinating Minister Khairy Jamaluddin mentioned that the next three months will be crucial for the vaccination campaign.

- AMEEN KAMAL

EMIR Research supports this view, and presents herein some strategies and success factors that must be given attention to complement the effort.

Khairy pointed out that the vaccination rate is going well at the moment with average daily doses surpassing earlier targets. Slight dips in daily rates that are not prolonged should not be an issue as long it’s part of an overall increasing trend and that the overall average rate meets the target.

More importantly, the effectiveness of the various excellent initiatives to ramp up vaccination pace will largely rely on consistent vaccine supply, in which Khairy expects 12 million doses to arrive in the month of July.

As supply bottleneck is expected to be alleviated for the next few months, potential local hiccups must be ironed out. Authorities are getting ready to handle this surge in supply, but the people must also be ready to support this by registering and showing up to vaccination appointments.

That said, we must realise that things may not go as planned and we have to be mentally and strategically prepared for this.

Upon observing experiences in other countries that have vaccinated a significant percentage of their population, we have to take note of the likelihood where vaccines may not be working as well as they should, or, as well as we would need it to. This may include shorter immunity retainment and/or lower effectiveness than expected.

This is compounded with the potential impact of virus variants bypassing vaccine-induced immunity. That is, mutation is faster and significant enough to circumvent immunity to parental or other strains, even if immunity is retained longer.