State Housing, Local Government, Town and Country Planning Committee chairman Jagdeep Singh Deo said the state government and PMPS reached the agreement as preliminary preparations to increase capacity and expedite vaccinations after the vaccine arrives in Malaysia.

He said the vaccines will be distributed by the health ministry to each state which will later distribute it to hospitals, as well as public and selected private clinics to vaccinate Penang residents.

“So far, 100 private clinics have agreed to provide free vaccination services to the entire population of Penang. I understand that 50 clinics in Seberang Perai, as well as 50 clinics on the island, have agreed to help the health ministry increase the capacity of the vaccination process.

“We are looking at the issue of whether the existing clinics are capable of accommodating such capacity. What will happen when the vaccine arrives?

“We have 1.8 million people who need to be vaccinated. Can you imagine what is going to happen?” he told reporters here today.

The Covid-19 vaccine is expected to arrive in Malaysia next month.

Speaking on the question of capacity, Jagdeep said the federal government should increase the number of panel clinics that do Covid-19 screenings for foreign workers due to concerns of the spread of Covid-19.

He said that recently the Social Security Organisation (Socso) revealed that only 8.5% of foreign workers in the country had been screened. He described this figure as too small.

“So far, the government has allowed 3,000 screenings per day in each state. For me, the capacity can be increased so that we can do screenings and take quick action,” he said.

He added that in Penang, only 51 clinics were authorised to conduct Covid-19 screenings on a total of 180,000 foreign workers there.

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