KUALA LUMPUR, June 18 — Health workers administered 221,706 Covid-19 vaccinations yesterday to give the country a total of 5.3 million doses to date, according to data released by the Special Committee on Ensuring Access to Covid-19 Supply (JKJAV).

The committee said 177,876 people were given their first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine while 43,830 others completed their second dose for full vaccination, with a total of 221,706 shots administered yesterday.

This is an increase compared to June 16 when 204,839 were administered on that day alone.

This is ahead of the target set by National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme Coordinating Minister Khairy Jamaluddin, who said Malaysia aimed to reach a daily vaccination rate of 200,000 doses a day by July, followed by 300,000 doses a day by August.

The rate of vaccination has been ramped up since late last month with more and more vaccine supply as listed under JKJAV’s vaccine portfolio arriving in the country.

For comparison, on May 18, only 2,072,444 of total vaccine doses were administered, compared to over five million as of yesterday.

Data on Covid-19 vaccinations has become additionally important as the government made the overall vaccination rate one of the benchmarks for its four-phase National Recovery Plan.

The vaccination rate must exceed 10 per cent of the country in order for the plan to move into the second phase, 40 per cent to enter the third phase, and 60 per cent to begin the fourth and final phase.