Selangor govt mass registration without consent behind AstraZeneca confusion, probe finds

A mass registration drive by the Selangor government for the optional AstraZeneca vaccine without the consent of the public has been identified as the culprit behind confusion in vaccination appointments, an investigation by the Covid-19 Immunisation Task Force (CITF) has found.

“CITF has found that this large number of bookings was made from the same IP addresses,” it said in a statement, adding that SELangkah, the contact tracing app promoted by the Selangor state government, was among those who had made large numbers of bookings.

It said SELangkah had admitted to making the bookings without consent.

This comes in the wake of complaints that many were given slots for the AstraZeneca vaccine, despite previously registering for other vaccines offered under the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme (PICK).

The government had offered AstraZeneca vaccines outside of PICK due to reservations from the public amid reports of deaths caused by rare blood clotting blamed on the vaccine.

Khairy Jamaluddin, the minister in charge of PICK, said yesterday that the government was investigating the possibility that mass registrations were carried out during the booking for the AstraZeneca jab.

This followed claims by some who said they had received notifications of appointments despite not registering while others said they had not despite successfully booking a slot.

At a press conference, Khairy said authorities had been told that several organisations had been identified as carrying out mass bookings.

“This should not have taken place, technically it cannot take place. There is only one hypotheses right now and it involves not getting the consent of the people,” he said.