KUALA LUMPUR, April 12 — A whopping 57 per cent of 31,776 people who received Covid-19 vaccination appointments through the MySejahtera app and SMS did not respond, Khairy Jamaluddin said today.
The vaccine minister revealed that 18,215 people did not confirm the dates offered for their jabs, 13,218 confirmed, and 343 declined. The government will send out 50,000 more appointment dates by today.
“I request those who have received their appointment details to respond if they will attend the session or not. This will help us to do the necessary arrangements in vaccination centres,” Khairy told a press conference today.
“If we don’t know how many will attend, maybe wastage will occur. Either insufficient vaccines or excess vaccines will be brought to the vaccination centres.”
Those who declined their first vaccination appointment offered will receive another date.
The Covid-19 Immunisation Task Force previously said that vaccination appointments would be automatically cancelled and rescheduled if attendance is not confirmed within 48 hours.
It is unclear why such a high proportion of people did not respond to vaccination appointments sent to their mobile phone, since offers for shots under Phase Two of the national Covid-19 vaccination programme are only given to those who voluntarily register for inoculation. The second phase of the vaccine rollout targets people aged above 60, as well as those with underlying health conditions or disabilities.
A few MPs running vaccine registration drives have told CodeBlue that many of their elderly constituents did not own mobile phones, even in the cities of Kuching in Sarawak and Petaling Jaya in Selangor.
