KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 13 ― Recently, a video of a Malaysian man who expressed his frustrations with the authorities at a vaccination centre (PPV) has been circulating around social media.
As it turns out, the man had lost his father-in-law to Covid-19 and this drove him and his wife to act out upon seeing crowds of people lining up for their walk-in vaccination without abiding to social distancing outside of the Rumah Prihatin@ Grand Seasons’ PPV.
The man who’s currently trending on Twitter as ‘Sir Shakib’ shared a video via his Instagram story on Wednesday.
It showed the crowds while he expressed his frustrations towards the lack of management at the PPV as it could expose everyone there to Covid-19.
In the seven-minute video, Sir Shakib explained that he and his wife were on their way to buy daily essentials and had stumbled upon the long lines of people in front of the PPV who were queuing up so close to each other they were almost hugging.
“We (who are nobody’s) had to instruct them (mostly foreigners) to abide by social distancing as there is no policing by the proper law enforcers.
“There was nobody there to guide them for their walk-in vaccinations. No social distancing, the SOP were lost.
“We tried asking the police there to shut down the PPV because it's no use but failed,” Sir Shakib wrote in the video.
Later in the video, Sir Shakib, at a separate location, can be seen crying while expressing his disappointment in the whole situation.
The couple then went back to the PPV only to find the situation hadn't gotten any better.
Through another series of Instagram stories posted later that evening, Sir Shakib aided by some of his team from an online tuition centre, MCPlus, returned to the PPV.
This time along with 100 traffic cones and multiple rolls of tapes.
Sir Shakib and his team worked through the night to lay out the cones and tapes which extended over 300 metres around the PPV to serve as the 1.5 metre social distancing guide for future attendees of the PPV.
They also left some spare traffic cones and tape along with scissors for the PPV’s staff to use.
In a more recent Instagram post, Sir Shakib said the loss of his father-in-law affected him and his wife greatly as they had promised to take care of their parents when they’re in their golden age.
“But all of those hopes were replaced with a video call of a funeral procession in Johor.
“I felt that I’ve failed, I’ve failed to at least come up with an effort to help my late father-in-law.”
“It’s also impossible for us to send in food and medicines or to meet up and be there by their side, it’s all impossible.”
Since the passing of his father-in-law last month, Sir Shakib has been praying for a chance to dedicate his efforts for his late father-in-law, whom he called abah.
This included educating people about Covid-19 and giving out Covid-19 test kits to the needy.
Sir Shakib expressed his gratitude to his wife and said that this was only the beginning of their effort.
Sir Shakib’s post has garnered over 20,000 likes with comments from social media users, applauding his efforts while the video of him and his team putting up social distancing measures have been viewed over two million times on MCPlus’ Instagram.
Rumah Prihatin in a statement said the crowds of people turning up on Wednesday was due to misinformation which has resulted in an unexpected rush crowd.
This is after they were misinformed that the PPV was accepting walk-ins from non-Malaysians.
The long lines were the result of the crowd refusing to leave the compound despite being asked to disperse by the police.
Dang Wangi Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Noor Delihan Yahya said the police took immediate action after reports of crowds outside the PPV surfaced.
