The National CITF has instructed the closure of 5 PPVs in Klang with one exception. We, the representatives of societies and community organisations in Klang want to offer an alternative view that should be considered based on public health and local geographic and demographic concerns.

a) Herd Immunity Met?

The reality is many people have yet to be registered on the Mysejahtera app as shown in the table below:

On-the-ground reality is that an estimate of 35% of the Klang population have yet to be vaccinated as shown below:

We urge that the first dose option continue to be opened and made available so that the 453,318 individuals can be vaccinated.

b) MySejahtera not the best platform for assessing the numbers

Based on the experience in managing PPV Hokkien Hall, more than 1500 citizens and noncitizens had to be registered on-site by volunteers as they were either unable to register in MySejahtera or complete the documentation required to get an appointment.

This shows that many people are not registered with MySejahtera making it a platform that is unsuitable for decision making purposes.

c) High infection rates indicate that many are still not vaccinated.

The argument that the 90% vaccination rate has been achieved in Klang is not reflected in the continuing high rates of infections.

The sudden increase in July and August shows that the number of unvaccinated is high. This is not good for public health as it could overburden hospitals and the aim to bring down the number of severe hospitalised cases will not be achieved as envisioned by KKM.

Therefore what CITF is doing is counterproductive to the national aim of reducing infections, burdens on the hospitals and deaths.

d) Closure of all the PPVs are not cost-saving

The government has already invested RM 3-4 million per PPV in Klang and this is a ‘sunk cost’- expenditure already made.

So CITF’s argument on new resource allocation or cost-saving doesn’t arise.

e) Keeping one mega PPV open will increase the risk of clusters happening

The spreading out of the population into multiple smaller PPVs was one of the main reasons why these different PPVs were opened. Concentrating more than 14 thousand people a day in PPV Wyndham Hotel for Klang as planned may lead to cluster breakouts and closure of that PPV for one or two days.

So it may be prudent to distribute vaccinations across Klang to other PPVs. This will also increase accessibility to people to vaccination centres, thereby increasing the number of vaccinations.

f) Difficulty and confusion that is to be faced by second dose recipients who are not IT-savvy

In conclusion, the rationale for closure is highly questionable and clearly not based on public health measures, science or data. Decisions should be made in consultation with local stakeholders for better outcomes. It appears that MOSTI and KKM’s positions are on collision course detrimental to public health and exit from achieving the true and actual 90% and lessening the burden on the hospitals.

We ask that the decision be revoked and wait for the new MOSTI Minister to be appointed for further dialogue and discussion.