Joint Press Statement
13 August 2021

CITF should direct vaccines to the rest of the states which are still begging for vaccines for adults and defer the school re-open date to protect our adolescents.

Minister in charge of the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme (NIP/PICK) Khairy Jamaluddin had recently said on Twitter that the COVID-19 Immunisation Task Force (CITF/JKJAV) and NIP/PICK will start giving vaccinations to 12-17 years old and that the announcement on the implementation method will be made by next week.

Dear minister, with all due respect, whilst the vaccinations roll out for adults had certainly been quite successful in certain states such as KL which achieved over 100% vaccination date for first dose, the adult population in most of the other states in Malaysia are still begging for vaccines.

For example, look at Sabah’s vaccination rate of adults which remain the lowest in Malaysia with just slightly over 40% for 1st dose and less than 20% completing their 2nd dose. New positive cases in Sabah has reached the all-time peak of more than 2,000 cases yesterday!

Kelantan’s adult vaccination rate (1st dose) is similarly low at 48.8%. Other states such as Penang and Melaka only had slightly over 60% of the adult population vaccinated, whilst Terengganu, Perak, Pahang, Kedah and Johor’s vaccination rate (1st dose) for adults is less than 60%.

In Melaka and Penang, many second dose appointments have postponed due to vaccine shortage. Some who have not received their first dose appointment resorted to change their address to Selangor and travel there to receive their vaccine.

This goes to show a clear imbalance of vaccine supply over states in Malaysia. This also goes to show that there might be an incidence of oversupply in certain states.

It’s now time to focus on achieving 70% adult vaccination rate in these states lagging behind.

Let’s bring adults in all states to achieve herd immunity.

To the federal government, we sternly urge you to please mobilise more vaccines to the states which are lagging far behind in vaccination for adults.  Adults as breadwinners of the family are still left out and at higher risk of contracting Covid-19.

Let us defer the re-opening of school term to a later date and protect our adolescents from risk of exposure to Covid-19.

Chan Foong Hin
MP for Kota Kinabalu

Wong Hon Wai
MP for Bukit Bendera

Khoo Poay Tiong
MP for Kota Melaka

Pang Hok Liong
MP for Labis

Wong Tack
MP for Bentong