THE Government needs to change the vaccine registration system in order to up the numbers of Malaysians queuing up for the shot.
Currently, there is only a count of how many people have registered, but the system does not allow them to choose their preferred time, date or place to get the vaccine.
According to the Selangor state assemblyman Rajiv Rishyakaran, there should also be a feature for the system to inform the people where the nearest available vaccine centres are.
“While we can assume the government will use automated technology (push notification) for the MySejahtera app users, many Malaysians have registered for the vaccine on the website or manually.
“These people need to be notified manually under Khairy’s plan of action. When people decline, they will have to be manually contacted again with a different date and time. Allowing people to pick their time slots simply eliminates this circumstance,” Rajiv explained in a statement earlier today.
The Government should also consider the fact that manually providing information via text messages to thousands of people on a daily basis will be a massive strain on resources.
“What about those who do not respond to the SMS or phone calls? Will they be dropped from the vaccination list?” he questioned.
In fact, Rajiv pointed out that the Ministry of Health (MOH) already has in place such an appointment system when it comes to seeing a doctor or to collect medicine. This shows that MOH already has available resources in place to amend the registration system.
“Threatening the general public with action for failure to attend the vaccination appointment is serving more as a deterrent than encouragement to register, especially when under the Emergency Ordinance, these fines can go up to RM10,000. If the government is really serious about achieving it’s 70% target on schedule, then changes must be made to the current registration process,” Rajiv said. – April 7, 2021
