Asia Sentinel Makes Some Blistering Comments About Malaysia

 Asia Sentinel has written an article on Malaysia's Corona Virus vaccine program. In brief things are not looking good. Here are some snippets :

https://www.asiasentinel.com/p/malaysia-fades-in-covid-fight

Malaysia, which early on in the fight against the Covid-19 coronavirus was one of Asia’s leaders, has begun to slip back, with at least some vaccine procurement seemingly diffused among competing parties thought to be aligned with top politicians, ostensibly illegal shots .., low signup rates due to fears of blood clots, and sharply rising new cases.

Malaysia isn’t alone. Cases are surging across much of Southeast Asia, for instance in Brunei, Cambodia, Thailand, and other countries although all are far behind Indonesia and Philippines. With nearly more than 9,000 cases in the past week, Malaysia’s weekly rise has hit 35 percent during that period, according to statistics compiled by the website Worldometer.

The Ministry of Health has been seeking to identify reasons behind low take-up rates and considering steps to boost vaccine registration, plagued by the fact that vaccine doses have been trickling in slowly. Malaysia has vaccinated only 3.2 percent of its population. The government has only recently concluded phase 1 of the vaccination program, involving medical and nonmedical front-liners.

Rising dissatisfaction with vaccine procurement has bled into the larger political scene, with Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin protected from ouster only by a coronavirus emergency declared by the king, which is expected to last into August amid widespread belief that it was called only to protect him and his shaky and uncertain majority in the 222-member Dewan Rakyat, or parliamentary lower house.

Parti Islam se-Malaysia and the United Malays National Organization, two restive members of his alliance, for weeks have been dropping strong public hints about bailing out – especially since Muhyiddin has been seeking to lure “frogs,” as disloyal UMNO members are called, to jump to his Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia to strengthen its pallid numbers.

One of the biggest concerns being spoken of in hushed tones within top political circles is that too many interests are freelancing vaccine purchases. Although there has been no confirmation, sources in Kuala Lumpur say minister(s) are among them.

Some sources have blamed much of the other problems in combating the coronavirus on the Director General of Health, Noor Hisham, who initially was regarded as being instrumental in keeping cases down but who now is widely disliked in government circles for being dictatorial although his public image remains positive.

‘In a totally dysfunctional cabinet made up of incompetent ministers, he dictates what should be done and what cannot be done,” a source said, adding that his critics say he held off approving the Pfizer vaccine until well after the European Union, the United States and the United Kingdom had recognized it. Now, with a long line already having obtained supplies including Israel, Bhutan, and Singapore, which has vaccinated at least 28.5 percent of its citizens, and with many more competing for it, Malaysia is described by a source as “at the back of the queue.”

My comments :

It is obvious to everyone by now that things are not right. The fact is things are very wrong with our corona virus vaccine program.

Firstly talk has been floating around for some time about dubious wheeling and dealing over the procurement of the vaccines. Exactly who are the parties involved in procuring the vaccines again? Is it the same bunch of orang kaya and orang ternama? We need transparency.

Do not gamble with peoples' lives over monetary profit. And more importantly it is taxpayers money. Our money. Our money that should have bought the corona virus vaccines by the planeloads and should have been administered to the public months ago. Duit bapak kita. Yet that is not happening. This idea of registration, prioritising people etc is not working. Granted the frontliners seriously need to be vaccinated first, including the school teachers. 

But other than that there is absolutely no need to register. Just do what other countries are doing. Set up vaccination booths by the roadsides, in the basement carparks of empty buildings, in the football stadiums, at open areas with easy drive in access and just vacinate everyone. No need to check orang tua, orang muda, lelaki, wanita, Malaysian citizens, non citizens etc.

(In Malaysia we are having this online registration and now we discover that the online registration numbers are low.   Can we have a racial breakdown on the registrations? I can assure you that there is a disproportionate racial 'slant' to the number of registered people so far. I can assure you the rural areas are the least registered. That is where the majority of voters are also located as well.) 

The corona virus infects living human beings. The virus does not care whether you are an old person, young person, Malaysian citizen or not a Malaysian citizen. As long as you are a human being and you are alive the virus can infect you and all living human beings can become potential virus carriers.

So you do not vaccinate people according to age groups, voters, non voters, other groups, citizens or non citizens, by racial groupings etc. As long as they are human beings, they are still alive and they live among us then those human beings must be vaccinated. That simply means ALL living human beings who live in this country.

I find it really unthinking that non citizens, especially foreign factory workers who have now been confirmed to be "high risk" are not being vaccinated.  What is the point of vaccinating the rest of us citizens when the 'high risk' factory workers are not being vaccinated? They will still be carrying the virus around. 

Yes I am certain the Malaysian taxpayer will not object to paying for the vaccination of foreign workers. They contribute to our economy tremendously and certainly we have a duty to ensure their protection against the virus. This is a pandemic. Please bring out your humanity for a short while. 

Dr Noor Hisham I really hope this was not your idea. Such thinking makes a fool of your medical school teachers. 

All the other countries in the world are doing the vaccination in an almost identical fashion - people just drive up or walk into a vaccination area, show some type of identification (like our MyKad) for tracking purposes and they get vaccinated. There is no need for any registration.  

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.