Malaysia should embark on an ambitious plan to accelerate the National Covid-19 vaccination roll-out and complete it during the National Day-Malaysia Day celebrations so that Malaysia can begin to return to normality and work on economic recovery by the fourth quarter of the year

I am disappointed that nothing has been done with regard to my suggestion two weeks ago that the National Covid-19 vaccination roll-out should be accelerated so that it could be completed very much earlier than the February 2022 schedule.

I would to reiterate my call for the country to embark on an ambitious plan to accelerate the National Covid-19 vaccination roll-out and complete it during the National Day-Malaysia Day celebrations from August 31st – September 16, 2021 so that Malaysia can begin to return to normality and work on economic recovery by the fourth quarter of the year.

Yesterday, the Health director-general Dr. Noor Hisham Abdullah said so far a total of 321,331 individuals have received their first vaccine dose under phase one of the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme.

Deputy Science, Technology and Innovation Minister, Ahmad Amzad Hashim, said yesterday that 5.53 million or 22.8 per cent of Malaysians had registered for the Covid-19 vaccine, with Kelantan registering the lowest number of people, i.e. 11.8% of the state’s population.

If we want to accelerate the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme, and have it completed in the next six months, then a new strategy and approach must be devised – which does not depend solely on the app MySejatera, allowing not only online but off-line registration; roping more stakeholders into the programme, including private hospitals and the country’s general practitioners, and enabling companies, associations and voluntary organisations to help in the vaccination registration process.

In his inauguration speech as United States President on January 20, Joe Biden urged Americans to wear masks to fight the Covid-19 pandemic and pledged vaccination of 100 million Americans in his first Hundred Days, i.e. a million vaccination a day,.

After serving half of his first 100 days as US President, the vaccination rate in the United States is almost 2.5 million doses per day, and the US President has accelerated the vaccination programme in the United States by setting May 1 as the date when every adult in the United States would be eligible for a coronavirus vaccination, and set America’s Independence Day on July 4 as the target date for a return to some normality.

There is no reason why Malaysia cannot become one of the better-performing countries in the war against Covid-19 pandemic and set new and high goals for National Day-Malaysia Day celebrations from August 31 – Sept. 16, 2021.