PUTRAJAYA: Malaysia has reached a "very critical condition" in battling the Covid-19 pandemic, with infections hitting an all-time high of 11,079 cases today.
Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said it is now crucial for the nation to ramp up its vaccination rate as frontliners battling the pandemic are experiencing severe burnout.
"We are in a very critical condition and we understand when cases go up, there is moral distress among the frontliners. What we are doing now is mobilising our staff from other states to help out and try our best to cope with the situation. This is very important as frontliners are our last line of defence.
"We hope to continue to provide services as much as we can and supported by additional staffing, equipment and mobilisation. We hope this will be the buffer for the time being but this is not the solution.
"The solution is to decrease cases and the only way is to increase vaccination rate," he said at a special press conference at the Health Ministry headquarters here today.
Dr Noor Hisham said having a vaccinated population which is protected against the virus was one of the ministry's strategies, which would in turn reduce admission rates to hospitals and intensive care units (ICU).
He said the vaccination rate in Kuala Lumpur and Putrajaya could be pushed up to 40 per cent to yield results, citing the example of the United Kingdom which saw one death in every 50 people in January when its population was unvaccinated.
Once vaccinated, the death rate improved to one per 1,000 people, accompanied by a decrease in hospital admissions.
"It is important for us to get vaccinated now to cut admission to the hospitals and ICU. This is important so we can live side by side with Covid-19," he said.