Govt considering action against anti-vaxxers

The government is studying the possibility of taking action against anti-vaxxers in the country if the group is found to be inciting the public not to support the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme (PICK), Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin said today.

He said the government had also asked the Special Committee on Covid-19 Vaccine Supply Access Guarantee (JKJAV) to look into the implementation of a mandatory vaccination programme if the number of registrations is not enough to reach the target of herd immunity.

“If we go according to plan, I hope we can speed up the vaccination rate,” he said after a visit to the Mitec vaccination centre in Kuala Lumpur with Khairy Jamaluddin, the minister in charge of PICK, and Health Minister Dr Adham Baba.

“The important thing is, there shouldn’t be people saying don’t get vaccinated.

“We don’t want some of our people to have received the jab while others do not because this will have consequences,” he added.

Muhyiddin said almost 13 million people in Malaysia had registered for vaccination so far, but that this was only 50% of the total number expected to ensure the success of the national immunisation programme.

He said the government would strive to expedite the vaccination process in its mission to achieve herd immunity more quickly, including through efforts to increase the number of PPVs both in urban and rural areas.

“We also call on private clinics to help the government. There are approximately 8,000 private clinics in the country and if they are included in our programme, more people can get vaccinated,” he said.

He also said there was no issue of vaccines being out of stock in the country as over 100% of the stock secured last year had arrived, with the numbers continuing to increase.

The Mitec PPV began operations on May 13 and will embark on mega-scale operations with an increased capacity of 8,000 vaccine recipients per day from June 7.