Life will be difficult for anti-vaxxers, Khairy warns

The government will take a vigorous approach towards those who refuse to be vaccinated by “continuing to make their life difficult”, Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin said today.

However, he said those who cannot be vaccinated due to health reasons will be fine as they will be provided with digital exemption on MySejahtera.

“Sorry to say, if you are not vaccinated because you choose not to be vaccinated, then we will make life very difficult for you and continue to make life difficult for you.

“Cannot dine in at restaurants, cannot go into shopping centres, and we will be releasing a National Testing Strategy next week… then we will probably ask you to do regular tests that you have to pay for. The message is to get yourself vaccinated,” he said at a press conference in Kuala Lumpur today.

Meanwhile, Khairy said individuals required to take a booster dose for umrah or to meet the conditions of other countries can apply to the health ministry, with the shots expected to be given from this month.

However, he said the health ministry was making efforts and discussing with the countries concerned not to practise discrimination pertaining to vaccines as the UK only allows Malaysians who have received the Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccines to enter the country without need for quarantine.

“Rather than having to revaccinate Malaysians who want to go to the UK without quarantine… treat all the vaccines, at least those which have been listed for emergency use under the World Health Organization, as the same.

“Like the UK, they are considering our request, hopefully they will agree and the same with Saudi Arabia… in any case we will give the booster dose but the easier and better solution is no discrimination as far as the vaccine is concerned,” he said.

Khairy also said he will be pushing for the compulsory outfitting of certain buildings with automated external defibrillator (AED) units.

He said he would discuss this with the relevant ministries as well as state governments and local authorities as it would involve amendments to building by-laws and that he would bring the matter to the Cabinet soon.

Without mentioning the targeted timeline for this, he said it would start with government buildings followed by other buildings.

“It (AED) must be displayed and we need to train as many people (as possible) to be first responders because there have been so many cases where people have gotten heart attacks but cannot get to hospital on time,” he said.