Segambut MP Hannah Yeoh has raised concerns over the protection being accorded those in the e-hailing industry, calling for drivers to be vaccinated immediately and suggesting a data share between the MySejahtera app and relevant industry players.
"A Grab driver contacted me yesterday expressing his concern about the danger of Covid-19 infection e-hailing drivers and delivery riders are exposed to daily.
"We have all seen photos of thousands of patients visiting the Covid-19 Assessment Centre (CAC) daily and if they choose e-hailing services to take them there, surely the government ought to protect these industry players from catching the infection and infecting others," she said in a statement today.
Yeoh called for three urgent steps to be taken to protect about 200,000 e-hailing drivers and delivery riders on the road daily:
"The Transport Ministry and the Covid-19 Immunisation Task Force (CITF) must immediately vaccinate these drivers and delivery riders who are transporting thousands of people, food boxes and parcels from various locations daily.
"This is not exactly rocket science. I am surprised they are not treated as frontliners even though they are categorised as essential service providers in every movement control order (MCO)," she said.
As a second step, she called on the Health Ministry to provide guidance and encouragement on ventilation for these e-hailing rides.
"This is crucial for those transporting thousands of customers to CAC centres across Malaysia. Why wasn’t this done earlier?" asked Yeoh.
She also called for a level of integration of data, saying that MySejahtera needs to embrace the open data concept by sharing its data with relevant industry players.
"The government assures that personal information will only be used for the purpose of managing and mitigating Covid-19 outbreak.
"Here is a classic example on why this data should be shared: Currently, when a person books a ride, the driver is not provided any information on the customer’s Covid-19 status until the customer hops into the car and scans the QR code (provided the Covid-19 status in MySejahtera is current and reflective of the customer’s health).
"The potential exposure and chain of infection is simply unimaginable, yet can be avoided and must be avoided," she said.
Yeoh named specific ministers who she said had the authority to immediately fix these issues within their respective jurisdictions.
"I will name each one lest no one in Putrajaya would act - Transport Minister Wee Ka Siong, National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme coordinating minister Khairy Jamaluddin and Health Minister Dr Adham Baba.
"Perhaps, the Selangor government and other state governments can and should beat their federal counterpart to it in arranging for vaccination for these 200,000 e-hailing frontliners," she added.
Yeoh said that she was grieved to see 11,000 Covid-19 daily cases and felt that many of them could have been prevented if only there was coordination, competency and care exercised by these cabinet ministers. - Mkini
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