Wong Pak Ming
SARIKEI (July 21): Democratic Action Party (DAP) Sarikei branch has called on the government to give greater freedom of movement to those who have been fully vaccinated.
“Fully vaccinated individuals should be given certain privileges such allowing them to cross districts, divisions or states to do their business and the government should also consider opening up the economy without reservation.
“Based on the studies and empirical evidence in the United States, Britain and many other countries, vaccinated individuals, even when infected by Covid-19, the impact is less severe and death is rare.
“In Britain, the death rate among vaccinated persons is as low as 0.1 per cent or one in a thousand,” said Wong in a press statement today,
He believed that the people, especially those in the low-income group such general workers; small-scale entrepreneurs are expecting such ‘good news’ that is the easing of Covid-19 controls upon completion of two-dose vaccination.
“Many daily or monthly-paid employees of small businesses have suffered tremendously over the past two years due to enforcement of the Movement Control Order (MCO). Therefore, as the government embarks on a comprehensive vaccination programme, it is equally important to open up the economic sector.
Wong also called on the state government to come up with a recovery plan for the small scale businesses which offer job opportunities to help many of the badly affected poor families in the state.
Following the State Disaster Management Committee (SDMC)’s statistics that over 50 per cent of Sarawak’s 3.2 million population has been fully vaccinated to date, he hoped that the pace could be further accelerated in order for the state to achieve herd immunity with at least 80 per cent of the population vaccinated by next month.
“The faster we vaccinate the people, the sooner we can return to normal life and by giving more flexibility to fully vaccinated individuals, it also encourages the vaccine hesitant group to change their mind (and get themselves vaccinated against Covid-19).”