KOTA KINABALU,: The Federation of Chinese Associations Sabah (FCAS) has called for full cooperation between the state government and the people, to strive to achieve the goal of herd immunity soonest, by all means.
Its President, Tan Sri T.C Goh thus urged the people of Sabah to actively come forward to register for the ongoing national vaccination program, and the state government to ensure there is sufficient vaccine to meet the demand.
He said the latest statistics showed that Sabah has the lowest registration rate in the country, with only 20.66% and this needs to be boosted.
“Hence, the state government and the relevant authorities must immediately review and improve all aspects concerning registration for Covid-19 vaccination. Otherwise, all the efforts and resources put in to fight the pandemic might just go to waste, and we might go back to square one,” he said.
He pointed out that the low registration rate in Sabah could be due to insufficient publicity on the vaccination registration, logistic issue, and poor internet broadband coverage, especially in the remote rural areas, which thus prevented many rural folks from registering for vaccination via MySejahtera. He thus hoped the relevant authorities could seriously look into such issues and promptly remedy them.
In a statement issued today, Goh who is also President of the Federation of Sabah and Labuan Hokkien Federation (FSLHA) opined that, the current lockdown and a series of movement control orders (MCOs) imposed by the government are only stop-gaps measure, and they can’t go on forever. He underscored that the best way to tackle the pandemic is to base on medical and scientific approaches, and that is to get vaccinated.
Goh who is also President of the Federation of Chinese Associations Malaysia (Huazong) proposed the following 10 measures to better improve registration for vaccination:
1. To ramp up publicity on vaccination registration, in the rural areas especially, through various channels including radio and television, and social media; Dissemination of such information should also be done in various languages in view of Sabah’s diverse ethnicities.
2. If necessary, to dispatch staff of government agencies, political parties, civil society organizations (CSOs) and voluntary bodies to the ground to spread the relevant information on vaccination registration to the villagers.
3. To boost Internet broadband coverage and accessibility throughout the state, so that people could go online to register for vaccination via MySejahtera.
4. To better assist the public to register for vaccination via various channels. This includes setting up registration booths at strategic locations.
5. To set up more vaccination centres, as well as enlisting private hospitals for such purposes under the PPVs program.
6. To roll out mobile vaccination centers to better reach the masses.
7. To encourage and enlist civil society organizations (CSOs) to provide free transportation for the public to commute to and fro the vaccination centers.
8. To consider giving incentives, such as transportation or food allowance to encourage the people to come forward to get vaccinated.
9. Urging the federal and state governments to ramp up vaccine supply for Sabah, in order to boost the vaccination rate.
10. Supports the government’s move to allow private hospitals and the business sector to provide vaccination for the public/company staff.-pr/BNN
