PUTRAJAYA: A vaccination programme for industries that remain open during the movement control order, including for their foreign workers, will kick off soon, says Khairy Jamaluddin.
The National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme coordinating minister said details of the programme would be announced next week.
“We will prioritise industries that are operational during the MCO, ” he said at his weekly media briefing with Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr Adham Baba yesterday.
The programme, Khairy added, would cover foreign workers employed in the industries involved.
“The foreign workers will be given vaccinations at the same time as Malaysian workers employed in these industries, ” he said.
Last Friday, the government announced a nationwide full lockdown that starts today.
Only 17 essential sectors are allowed to operate, including the food and beverage industry, healthcare facilities, and transportation.
The International Trade and Industry Ministry has listed 18 manufacturing and manufacturing-related sectors that are allowed to operate during the lockdown.
Khairy said the Covid-19 Immunisation Task Force would also discuss vaccinations for refugees at its meeting today.
“We want to plan on how to go about vaccinating the refugee population in the most effective way, ” he said, adding that the task force is also looking at how best to vaccinate undocumented migrants.
He said a discussion has been held with Federal Territories Minister Tan Sri Annuar Musa on the use of mobile trucks for vaccinations in certain areas in Kuala Lumpur, especially those with high infection rates.
“We will begin a pilot project under the mobile truck outreach programme where vaccinations are given to those residing in PPR (People’s Housing Projects) residential areas as well as at construction sites that remain open during the lockdown, ” he said.
About 30 mobile trucks will be used for this outreach programme where around 100 vaccinations can be done per mobile truck per day.
Khairy also said that 12,117,091 or almost 50% of the country’s population 18 years and above had registered for vaccinations.
The number of those who have been vaccinated is 2,913,009, of which 1,052,145 had completed two doses.
As at May 31,3, 871,725 people had registered under the second phase of the vaccination programme.
Khairy said the number of people who registered saw a surge after the number of cases went up.
“There is greater awareness on the part of the public to get vaccinated to protect themselves.
“We will boost vaccinations and expedite the process to meet the people’s concerns, ” he said.
He said there were reasons why people did not turn up for their vaccination appointments, including transport issues and a lackadaisical attitude, assuming they could get jabbed later even if they missed this appointment.
“We will hand over waiting lists to state and district health offices so as not to waste vaccines... due to no-shows.
“This way, they can either call those on the waiting list or call those with appointments earlier to remind them to turn up, ” Khairy said.
He also had an explanation as to why certain vaccine applicants received their appointments at other locations far from where they reside, saying that this had been traced back to MySejahtera users using the Google Maps API (application programming interface) for their address fields.
“For instance, somebody types ‘Taman Bahagia’ and all the (places named) ‘Taman Bahagia’ in Malaysia drop down as suggestions on the Google Maps API.
“And they may have simply clicked on the first Taman Bahagia that appeared. As a result, they are sent to Taman Bahagia in Sandakan, Sabah, ” he said.
“My message is, please go and update your address fields so that this (problem) can be minimised.”
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