KUALA LUMPUR, June 24 — The Transport Ministry will launch tomorrow a Covid-19 vaccination programme for workers in the transportation sector, Khairy Jamaluddin announced today.
“So, we have received a lot of different applications for different sectors to be considered frontliners and of course, the constraint was supply,” the vaccine minister said at the National Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Malaysia’s virtual 45th annual general meeting today.
“[Transport sector will start] with the port operators and the cargo operators; we’ll be getting around to the e-hailing drivers and food delivery drivers in July.”
Last week, Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin announced that businesses will be able to operate at 80 per cent capacity under Phase Three of the National Recovery Plan that is targeted in September and October, when 40 per cent of Malaysia’s total population are expected to be fully vaccinated.
Khairy also mentioned that Malaysia is looking at trying to open up pockets of green bubbles for the tourism industry.
“I can also tell you that we are having accelerated vaccination exercises for Langkawi because we want to open up Langkawi as a green bubble for tourists like they’re doing in Bali and Phuket as a pilot programme.
“So if that’s successful, then we can start opening up to fully vaccinated tourists. They can fly into Langkawi. They cannot come to the mainland, but they can do whatever they want there and then they can go back,” Khairy added.
At the same time, the science, technology and innovation minister stated that Malaysia is also working with other countries to open up international borders, especially Singapore.
“I believe that we can start thinking about opening borders once other countries are also confident in our management of Covid-19.
“So for Singapore, for instance, I’ve already been discussing with Singapore in terms of the recognition of MySejahtera and the application so that we can have joint recognition of our vaccination passport. That’s done already. So now it’s a matter of Singapore being confident to open the border with us.”
In an op-ed by Singapore’s Covid-19 task force ministers Gan Kim Yong, Lawrence Wong and Ong Ye Kung today, they wrote that travel would resume in Singapore’s new normal while living with Covid-19 as an endemic disease, “at least to countries that have also controlled the virus and turned it into an endemic norm”.
This would entail Singapore and destination countries recognising each other’s vaccination certificates.
Malaysia has yet to control its Covid-19 epidemic, as more than 5,000 Covid-19 cases and dozens of fatalities continue to be recorded daily, amid full intensive care units (ICU) in hospitals and high positive rates underpinning what critics say shows inadequate testing.
