THE National Union of Bank Employees (NUBE) criticised Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin for saying that the Government would make life “difficult” for those who refused to get themselves COVID-19 vaccines.
“Khairy’s intention, as expressed in his statement, demonstrates recalcitrant behaviour. It is akin to the Government resorting to using gangsterism on the citizens.
“Bear in mind that we will protest against such discrimination and bullying of those who refuse to get vaccinated,” its general secretary J Solomon told FocusM.
Two days ago, Khairy cautioned the unvaccinated that the Government would “continue to make life difficult” for them as they chose not to receive the shots.
However, the Rembau MP said that it would not apply to those who have valid medical reasons for not getting the COVID-19 vaccines.
”If you cannot be vaccinated, that’s fine. We will give you a MySejahtera digital exemption. But if you don’t vaccinate yourself by choice, we will continue to make life difficult for you.
”You will not be allowed to dine in at restaurants and barred from entering shopping centres,” he was reported saying.
Touching on the matter, Solomon reminded the Government that the latter itself had mentioned several times in the past that getting vaccinated alone would not prevent COVID-19 spread, as even those inoculated can get infected and spread the disease.
He added that even countries like Singapore and Israel had revoked their initial policy of producing vaccine passport for travel, as the nations realised that there is no epidemiologic value to it due to the rising number of infections among the vaccinated population.
Consent is paramount
“Therefore, the assumption that the unvaccinated people and worker would endanger the inoculated populace is false.
“Besides, there could be many reasons why one does not want to get vaccinated such as medical reasons and fear of its risk factor.
“Others may want to fall back on their own natural immunity to fight COVID-19 infection while others question the speed of the vaccines being developed,” Solomon quipped.
He mentioned that due to the risk involving the vaccines, recipients are required to sign consent forms before getting inoculated.
“The vaccine cannot be administered to those who do not give their consent and it is legally and morally wrong to force them to consent to a risk against their will.
“And Khairy cannot bully his way into forcing consent from those people by discriminating and ostracising them, as well as labelling them as ‘anti-vaxxer’,” Solomon concluded. – Oct 18, 2021
