KUCHING, June 27 — The setting up of vaccination centres (PPVs) by various sectors would help enable the economy to operate again upon the implementation of the government’s exit strategy towards a rebound from Covid-19 pandemic, said Sarawak Housing and Real Estate Developers Association (Sheda) Kuching chairman Datuk Sim Kiang Chiok.
In this respect, he hailed the announcement by Prime Minister about providing PPVs for the plantation sector soon as ‘good news’ as this would expedite the growth of the vaccination rates in Sarawak to achieve herd immunity more quickly.
“The manpower for these sectors would be vaccinated and protected against Covid-19 infection, and our country would be able to resume, recover and revitalise our economy onto the growth path again,” he said in a statement yesterday.
Sim regarded full vaccination as the ‘silver bullet’ that could flatten the current Covid-19 curve.
“Our vaccination plan has gone through Phase 1 (for frontliners) and Phase 2 for the elderly folk and those with underlining illnesses. Now, it’s Phase 3 for all individuals aged 18 and above.
“However to speed up the vaccination rates, the federal government has allowed Phase 3 to include industrial vaccination to be rolled out by big companies with large (numbers of) employees,” he said.
For this industrial vaccination phase, Sim said the vaccines would be provided by the government for free, but the employers must pay for the setting up of the PPVs and also cover the costs involving private medical personnel.
“The employees must not have to pay anything. This is to allow the big industrial companies to assist the government in speeding up the roll-out of the vaccines.
“Of course the success of the programme is also subject to vaccine arrivals from th manufacturers,” he said. Sim observed that a number of industrial PPVs here had been running over the last few days, namely PPV Longi in Samajaya Industrial Estate, the PPVs at The Spring and Vivacity malls, as well as PPV Association of Churches Hall, which were slated for employees from manufacturing, services and tourism sectors.
He, however, pointed out that until the herd immunity had been achieved in Sarawak, everyone must adhere to the standard operating procedures (SOP) such as wearing face masks, washing one’s hands regularly or using hand sanitisers, and keeping the social distancing. — Borneo Post
