KLANG: Klang Member of Parliament Charles Anthony Santiago is appealing to the government to revoke the closure of five vaccination centres (PPV), leaving only one Covid-19 inoculation facility for the people in the town.
He said a semblance of herd immunity had yet to prevail as the numbers of those vaccinated in MySejahtera did not match the reality on the ground.
Santiago said based on MySejahtera, 796,313 people in Klang, above the age of 18 had registered for their inoculation and 90 per cent of that number or 716,682 had received their first jab or appointments as of Aug 3.
"But the reality is Klang has a population of 1.3 million and to reach 90 per cent coverage you would need 1.17 million people to be jabbed. If you deduct 1.17 million with 716, 682 people who have been vaccinated and/or given their appointments, a simple calculation would show a shortfall of 453,318 to make the 90 per cent mark," he said at a press conference here today.
The third-term MP also said that the figures meant that about 35 per cent of Klang's population had yet to be vaccinated.
He also said many missed and changed their appointments because of the PPV being crowded and for other reasons.
Santiago said that the high rate of infections in Klang did not correspond with the MySejahtera data that 90 per cent of the population had been vaccinated.
He said the number of Covid-19 cases in Klang had been increasing progressively over the past three months and that over the past one month between July 21 and Aug 20, 49,697 cases were recorded compared to 17,066 and 10,981 cases that were logged from June 21 to July 20 and May 21 to June 20, respectively.
"The sudden increase in July and August show that the number of unvaccinated persons is still high. Our public health target of reducing the strain on hospitals by bringing down the number of severely ill Covid-19 patients by vaccination will also not materialise."
Santiago said the closure of 29 PPVs across Selangor was a counterproductive move taken by the Covid-19 Immunisation Task Force (CITF).
As only one mega PPV at the Wyndham Hotel would be kept open, the federal lawmaker said that this would increase the risk of clusters.
"Spreading out the population into multiple smaller PPVs is one of the main reasons these different PPVs were opened.
"By concentrating 14,000 people a day at the Wyndham Hotel PPV for Klang, this might trigger clusters and the closure of that PPV for one or two days.
"So it may be prudent to distribute vaccination across Klang to other PPVs. This will also increase accessibility to vaccination centres and boost the number of vaccinations."
He also said that the closure of PPVs did not amount to a cost-saving measure, as CITF had argued, as the government had already pumped RM3 to 4 million per PPV in Klang.
Santiago also said the change of PPVs could lead to miscommunication and confusion among second dose recipients who were not IT-savvy, especially the elderly and migrant workers.
"This may lead to missed appointments and non-completion of vaccination," he said, adding that MySejahtera was not user-friendly for the groups and there were many who had yet to register.
He said the repository of data based on MySejahtera feedback should not be used as a basis for decision-making.
Elected representatives in the area, Santiago said, were open to discuss the issue with the authorities and hoped for consultation among all relevant stakeholders before such decisions were made in the future.
"We also ask that these decisions be revoked and for the new Science, Technology and Innovation Minister to be appointed for further dialogue and discussion," he added.
Also present at the press conference were Port Klang state assemblyman Azmizam Zaman Huri and Klang Coalition Chinese Associations Datuk Tony Tang.