BY James Kon

Nearly 70 per cent of the populace have been administered the COVID-19 booster shot as of Thursday.

Speaking at the daily press conference on Friday, Minister of Defence II cum Acting Minister of Health Pehin Datu Lailaraja Major General (Rtd) Dato Paduka Seri Haji Awang Halbi bin Haji Mohd Yussof said the vaccination coverage rate in this category stood at 69.2 per cent.

Thursday also saw 281 first doses of the vaccine being administered to children aged between five and 11, bringing the tally to 33,117 doses or 77.2 per cent coverage rate.

Meanwhile, 1,130 children in the age bracket had received the second dose, bringing the total figure to 13,058 doses or a coverage rate of 33.1 per cent.

The Sultanate also recorded 261 new COVID-19 cases on Friday, bringing the national tally of confirmed cases to 146,044.

Of this, 259 cases were detected through antigen rapid tests (ART), while two of the 305 reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) laboratory tests performed over the past 24 hours returned positive.

Additionally, one Category 4 case is under close monitoring and receiving respiratory assistance.

The minister added that an additional 437 cases had recovered, bringing the total number of recoveries to 144,057. The number of active cases stands at 1,766, 13 of whom are receiving treatment at hospitals, while 1,753 are undergoing home self-isolation.

Acting Deputy Permanent Secretary (Policy and Management) at the MoH Dr Hajah Anie Haryani binti Haji Abdul Rahman also attended.

-- Courtesy of Borneo Bulletin