In a series of Twitter posts, Khairy said the registration of children in the age group had exceeded one million, though this was only 28% of children in that bracket.

“I hope parents no longer take a ‘wait and see’ attitude because the rate of hospital admissions among children are starting to rise. Register your child for the national immunisation programme for children (PICKids) today,” he said.

Previously, Khairy said there was a 160% increase in Covid-19 cases involving children since the start of February, with 16,959 infections from Feb 7 to Feb 13. In comparison, there were 6,524 cases involving children from Jan 31 to Feb 6.

However, crucially, no Covid-19 related deaths were recorded for this demographic during the period.

As of Feb 20, Kuala Lumpur had the highest registration rate for children aged five to 11 at 58%, followed by Penang (43%), Putrajaya (43%), Melaka (40%), Selangor (37%), Johor (37%), Negeri Sembilan (30%), Sarawak (30%), Perak (27%), Pahang (23%) and Kedah (21%).

Registration rates for children in this age group remained below 20% in Labuan (17%), Perlis (16%), Terengganu (16%), Sabah (9%) and Kelantan (8%).

Khairy pledged to redouble efforts to reach out to communities and regions with lower registration rates.

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