KUCHING: A senior youth member of the Progressive Democratic Party (PDP) Robert Ayu supports the Health Ministry’s move to track down the unvaccinated individuals instead of waiting for them to turn up at the vaccination centres (PPVs).
“For Malaysia to achieve herd immunity or to move from the pandemic to the endemic phase, we must conduct outreach vaccination programmes to vaccinate as many people as possible.
“However, it will be challenging to track these people down as some refuse to be inoculated due to their religious beliefs or belong to the anti-vaccines movement.
“Others may refuse to be vaccinated because they are not well informed about the vaccination programme. They may be staying in remote areas,” he said.
Robert added that some of the unvaccinated might refuse the vaccine as they believed that the vaccines were not good for their health.
“In fact, I had come across a couple who refused to get their jabs because they had high blood pressure.
“Hence, the relevant ministries or departments, political parties and non-government organisations must counter the arguments of these anti vaxxers with scientific data and facts,” he said.
Robert said that he had explained to those opposing the vaccination that the Covid-19 vaccines were like jabs for polio, smallpox, measles, mumps, rubella, etc for the young.
“The scars of these jabs are still there on our upper arms and they are proof that the vaccines work
“Thus, we must convince these individuals we will be living with this deadly Covid-19 virus similar to other viruses for the rest of our lives.
“In order to control the impact, one must be vaccinated. The unvaccinated individuals will be at risk compared to those given the vaccines,” he said.
He further reminded the people to convince the unvaccinated ones as part of the new normal, those entering public places including offices would need to show their vaccine certificates.
