3rd August 2021

Malaysia hit a record 219 COVID-19 deaths on 2 August. We should focus on saving lives instead of saving costs. DAP urges the PN government to spend RM1.5 billion extra to purchase the remainder 11.2 million doses required from Pharmaniaga to inoculate all 18.8 million adults registered to be fully vaccinated and achieve herd immunity.

The Federal government should not wait for another two to three months for all the Pfizer vaccines to arrive, but immediately purchase the 11.2 million Sinovac vaccines from Pharmaniaga, who has 14 million vaccines available for sale. Malaysians are fed up with waiting interminably for their vaccine appointments, especially those who have registered in February or March. Something is very wrong with the MySejahtera system when it can not operate on a first-come first-serve basis despite spending RM70 million.

In his speech in Parliament on 28 July 2021, the Coordinating Minister for Vaccination Khairy Jamaluddin mentioned that 12.5 million Malaysians have at least received the first dose out of the 18.8 million adults registered. Since the 18.8 million adult Malaysians registered comprise 80.5% of the adult population in Malaysia, 37.6 million doses of vaccines are required.

The government has received 26.4 million doses of vaccine, short of 11.2 million doses which is expected to arrive over the next two to three months.

Of the 26.4 million doses of vaccines received, 18.4 million doses have been administered. The remaining 8 million doses will be finished in 16 days if the current rate of 500,000 doses per day is achieved.  What is required is another 11.2 million doses of vaccine to enable PICK to immunise immediately all the 18.8 million adults registered.

The RM5.8 billion allotted by the PN government for the procurement of vaccines and other related expenditures is not enough to fund the estimated RM1.5 billion cost to procure 11.2 million doses of Sinovac from Pharmaniaga. Malaysians do not understand why the government cannot provide another RM 1.5 billion to immediately purchase the 11.2 million doses of Sinovac vaccine from Pharmaniaga.

Let me state here that the opposition is willing to lend support to borrowing or sourcing funds for the additional RM1.5 billion to purchase 11.2 million doses of vaccines now to immunise all the 18.8 million of the adult population registered.

To wait another two to three months until all the vaccines arrive is too long and too late. According to the Health Ministry, of the 15,764 new infections, 78% of cases were from those who were not vaccinated. For those in the most serious Category 5, 98% were from those not vaccinated. How many more Malaysians will die in the next 3 months because they were not vaccinated?

Sarawak Deputy Chief Minister James Masing said his brother would not have died from COVID-19 if he had been vaccinated earlier. Lives are too valuable to be lost. Further the country can recoup the extra cost of RM1.5 billion by offsetting economic gains from reopening the economy sooner. We want to achieve herd immunity through inoculation not through both inoculation and infections.

Lim Guan Eng

DAP Secretary-General