KOTA KINABALU: President of the Federation of Chinese Associations Sabah (FCAS), Tan Sri T.C Goh has expressed concern and bewilderment that, despite being the state with 4th highest number of daily Covid-19 positivity rate in the country, Sabah’s vaccination rate is still the lowest in the country.
He thus called on both the federal and state governments to strive to remedy such a critical situation, as soon as possible.
He proposed two proposals for both the federal and state governments, as follows:
1. To ramp up supply of government-sponsored vaccines for Sabah, besides facilitating purchase of vaccines by the private sector for the workers.
2. Once there’s sufficient vaccine supply, to ramp up ‘walk-in’ vaccination programme throughout the state, as well as to provide ’round the clock’ (24-hours) vaccination service, which is necessary, in view of the critical Covid-19 situation.
Goh who is also a member of the State Economic Advisory Council (SEAC) underscored that, during this extraordinary challenging time, the government and the Ministry of Health (MOH) should adopt ‘unconventional’ measures, including 24-hours approach, whether through appointment or walk-in, to better encourage the people to get vaccinated.
“First and foremost, the federal government must provide sufficient free vaccines for Sabah, so that the vast majority of the people could get vaccinated for free. Besides this, the government could also allow the private sector to carry out paid vaccination,” he said.
Apart from this, he also encouraged the state government to purchase vaccines on its own, to supplement those provided by the federal government, in order to boost and accelerate vaccination in the state.
Meanwhile, Goh also announced that due to a spike in Covid-19 cases in the state, which exceeded 2,000 cases daily, and taking into consideration of the safety of the volunteers and workers, FCAS has decided to temporarily suspend its “Sumbangsih Makanan” daily food aid programme with effective from tomorrow (Saturday 14 August), until the situation improves.
Goh who is also President of the Federation of Chinese Associations Malaysia (Huazong) and President of the Federation of Sabah and Labuan Hokkien Associations (FSLHA) announced this while helping out at the site of the food aid programme, at the Hakka Hall here. Also in attendance were various FCAS senior officials, including its vice president, Lim Vun Chan, treasurer-general cum organising chairman, David Chan, and its women chief, Shirley Wong.
On the latest standard operating procedure (SOP) issued by the state government mandating that only those individuals who have completed two doses of vaccines are allowed to dine in, Goh opined that such a move may not benefit the eateries operators. He explained that this was in view of the fact that the number of people in Sabah who have completed two doses of vaccine is still far from satisfactory.
He cited that, the official statistics indicated that as of Wednesday, 1.18 million individuals or 30.4% of Sabah’s population has completed the first dose of vaccination, while those who have completed two doses were 514,184 persons or 13.2% of the total population. This clearly indicated that Sabah’s vaccination rate, whether first dose or two doses, is still the lowest as compared to other states.
On the Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin’s announcement on Thursday that, the government is considering taking actions against those who declined to register for vaccination, in order to achieve the target of ‘herd immunity’ soonest possible, Goh said while he welcomed such a move, he hoped the government could ensure a speedy and sufficient supply of vaccines to every states.
“Currently, there are still many Malaysians and non citizens who failed to register for vaccination. Sabah too is facing a similar problem and it warrants urgent attention and remedy by the government,” he concluded.-pr/BNN
