KUALA LUMPUR, April 19 — Those who registered early for Covid-19 vaccination will still have to wait their turn according to priority under the national inoculation programme, Khairy Jamaluddin said today.
The science, technology, and innovation minister, in a Covid-19 Immunisation Task Force (CITF) press conference today, explained that those who register early won’t necessarily get early appointments if they don’t fall under the priority groups.
“When we have registered, we have to wait for our phase that we are involved in. If we are young, with no disease or comorbidities, we cannot say ‘I have registered on February 24, where is my appointment?’ because I have said earlier that we have to wait for the phase,” Khairy said.
The government has divided the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme (PICK) to three phases. The second phase kickstarted today for those above the age of 60, the disabled, and people with comorbidities, while the third phase is for all those above the age of 18.
“Phase Two is for the elderly, those with comorbidities and the disabled. Once Phase Two is completed, we will start Phase Three and I would like to inform that we will be receiving more vaccine supplies from June onwards.”
Previously, Khairy, in an exclusive interview with CodeBlue, said that Phase Three might be moved up early and the government will not be waiting for more people to register for Phase Two. Currently, only 38.3 per cent of individuals eligible for Phase Two have registered for the vaccine.
The coordinating minister for PICK also pointed out that Malaysia opened Covid-19 vaccine registration for the public from the beginning, unlike in the United Kingdom where vaccine registration is only opened according to priority groups.
“Malaysia — we opened early because many said, ‘just open the registration, I want to register’. Hence, we opened but I am asking for us to adhere to the schedule that has been fixed,” Khairy told a press conference in Putrajaya this afternoon.
Besides that, Khairy also said that Malaysia is on track with PICK, as compared to other ASEAN countries.
“If we look at the vaccination rate in Malaysia, compared to other ASEAN nations, we are only behind Singapore, Indonesia and Cambodia. The others, the Philippines, Thailand, all are behind us,” the vaccine minister added.
