Warisan vice-president Junz Wong has urged the Gabungan Rakyat Sabah (GRS) administration to disclose the Covid-19 vaccine rollout plan.
He claimed to have received many public complaints regarding messy crowd control, shortage of vaccine supply and people having to endure months of waiting for their vaccination appointments, among others.
He further alleged the people are fed up because the vaccination programme is not carried out efficiently.
For example, he said there are over 150 vaccination centres (PPVs) in Sabah, with more than 10 in and around the Kota Kinabalu (KK) city area.
Wong said most people are aware of the PPVs at the Sabah International Convention Centre (SICC) or Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS) but not so much those in other locations.
“When residents from Putatan, KK, Sepanggar, Luyang and Kepayan all rush to a specific centre like the SICC PPV for the walk-in vaccination, it becomes chaotic. That’s why there have been photos and videos of such large crowds at the SICC PPV.
“But how can more than 5,000 people squeeze into a particular PPV, when only 2,000 vaccines are available for that day?” Wong said, in a statement here today.
He added that poor communication and coordination were among the factors for these problems.
Earlier today, Sabah local government and housing minister Masidi Manjun said the daily infections in the state will continue rising if the vaccination rate remained low in the state, as only 17.6% of the adult population have so far received both doses of the Covid-19 vaccine.
Sabah has consistently registered over 1,000 new cases daily in seven out of the past eight days.
Wong proposed the GRS government appoint and empower the new Sabah health director Dr Rose Nani Mudin to take charge of the state’s vaccine rollout plans and all Covid-19 related issues.
“Since we have no state health minister, the health director, who is an experienced doctor and a frontliner herself, should be empowered in order to rectify the mess and salvage the situation (in Sabah).
“And from here on, GRS must also communicate Sabah’s vaccine rollout plan so that everyone understands it,” he said.
Meanwhile, DAP’s Sandakan MP Vivian Wong condemned the federal and state government for failing to speed up the vaccination rate in Sabah.
“The last time Sabah experienced four-digit daily cases was after the 2020 Sabah election. What is the reason now?
“It is none other than the failure of the government to act promptly based on science and fact,” she said, in a statement.
She added that the state government must wake up and stop its “sit-and-wait” approach for the delivery of the Covid-19 vaccines and instead source for readily available stock.
Although Sabah had recently announced it would be purchasing 250,000 doses of the Sinovac vaccine through its investment arm, Qhazanah Sabah Group, Vivian said the state needed more.
“Sabah has a lot of undocumented migrants. So, we are living in a time bomb, should the Delta variant spread to this community.
“They won’t be willing to seek medical help because of the cost and other factors. We will not be able to handle it,” she said.
She added that the state government should have ensured sufficient vaccine supply from Putrajaya from the onset.
“We also do not want Sabah to come up with the money to buy (vaccines) as we are already poor enough but our state Cabinet ministers do not seem to be fighting hard enough,” Vivian said.
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