PRIME Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin recently revealed that individuals who have completed two doses of the COVID-19 vaccine may be allowed to travel interstate and even abroad.
In addition to allowing interstate travel without any restrictions by the authorities, the Prime Minister also said that the Government has started negotiations and discussions with several countries for Malaysians who have been fully vaccinated to travel there.
Well then, this is an excellent bit of news for people who are itching to travel, isn’t it? My only gripe is the fact that this wasn’t announced right from the get-go?
This is, a good incentive for people to come forward to register and to be vaccinated, and had this been announced from the start, the number of people to register for the vaccines would probably be much higher.
At the rate the country is going with the registration process, there have been doubts that we will be able to meet the target of vaccinating more than 80% of the country’s population or close to 27 million people by the first quarter of 2022.
It is no exaggeration to say that Malaysia needs all hands-on deck to encourage people to register for their COVID-19 vaccination jabs.
In the past few weeks, various individuals, civil society and companies have stepped up to boost the vaccination registration to boost flagging sign-ups. These have included various forms of campaigns, in addition to special discounts to encourage people to register to get jabbed.
More of these ‘incentives’ are needed in the coming months to encourage people to register. The Government will have more time to go about this, it seems, as they have recently announced that there will not be a deadline for members of the public to register for the COVID-19 shots for now.
As of April 1, only about 31.4% of adults (or 7.6 million people) in Malaysia have registered on MySejahtera for their COVID-19 shots. – April 4, 2021
Photo credit: The Star
