‘Allay fears of frontliners, priority groups deprived of early vaccination slots’

Lim Guan Eng

KUCHING (June 3): The Perikatan Nasional (PN) government has been told to disclose fully and transparently the age profile of those who have been vaccinated, through the MySejahtera app.

Democratic Action Party (DAP) secretary-general Lim Guan Eng said this is to reassure the public that frontliners and senior citizens are given priority and first preference for Covid-19 vaccination.

“The delayed delivery of vaccines and spike in the record numbers of Covid-19 daily infections and deaths have struck fear in the hearts of Malaysians who are desperately seeking vaccines,” the Bagan MP said in a press statement yesterday.

This search for the vaccine is even more urgent amongst high-risk and vulnerable groups, especially the elderly, he pointed out.

“For this reason, the public can be easily distressed by news reports of tens of thousands of fortunate people chosen but failing to turn up for appointments to receive vaccine jabs.”

Despite explanations given by the government about what happened to the tens of thousands of unused vaccines left by those that failed to turn up for their appointments, Lim said DAP still wants the PN government via the MySejahtera app to disclose fully and transparently the age profile of those vaccinated.

“Many countries in the West give a complete profile of age groups, giving priority and preference to older and senior citizens as well as vulnerable groups before giving them to the younger and more healthy citizens.

“This would also serve to allay concerns that there are younger people and those not in the high-risk or vulnerable groups getting vaccines ahead of the priority groups, through unethical means,” he said.

He added that failure to give an age profile on a regular basis of those vaccinated would only deepen the existing trust deficit between the public and PN, following the whole-of-government failure in handling Covid-19 to the point where Malaysia is now among the worst-hit countries in the world.

“Such trust deficit is not helped by the serial policy flip-flops and Covid-19 SOPs U-turns as well as double-standard in the enforcement of Movement Control Order (MCO) restrictions between the VIPs and the rakyat (people),” he stressed.

Defeating Covid-19 requires a whole-of-society effort premised on public trust and confidence, he added.

“If the PN government cannot trust MPs by refusing to reopen and convene Parliamentary meetings, then PN should not refuse to trust the people.

“Failure to fully disclose information would not help to repair the breakdown of trust towards the PN government that led to an Emergency proclamation and three MCOs but still failed abjectly to contain and check Covid-19,” Lim said.

from Borneo Post Online https://bit.ly/3fIEA8A
via IFTTT