A member of the public scans her body temperature before being allowed to enter the vaccination centre at Taman Selera Muhibah.
SIBU (Aug10): The Sibu Division Disaster Management Committee (SDDMC) will be setting up a daily Covid-19 walk-in centre at the Sibu Central Market soon, said its coordinator Dr Annuar Rapaee.
He said the details of the daily walk-in vaccination programme would be announced as soon as everything is in place and ready.
“I’ve just had a discussion this morning and I am glad that the Sibu Municipal Council (SMC) chairman Clarence Ting has prepared a place for us. It is going to be ready soon.
“You see, some of the vaccination centres (PPV) might reduce their capacity. In other words, they do not need to operate at full capacity, so the staff can be deployed to some other places like the central market as well as the mobile team,” he told reporters when met at the Taman Selera Muhibah PPV at Sungai Antu here today.
At the moment, the vaccination programme at Sibu Central Market only opens during the weekend.
It was understood that about 300 people went for the walk-in vaccination programme at the central market last weekend.
Dr Annuar (right) gives a bag of rice to a participant who came for the walk-in vaccination at Taman Selera Muhibah while (from third left) political secretary to the Chief Minister Michael Tiang and Ting look on.
According to Dr Annuar, SMC has allowed the Health Department to use an empty shop lot at Sibu Central Market, next to BY Chan Pharmacy, for the daily vaccination programme.
SMC chairman Clarence Ting said that at the moment, the council is cleaning up the shop lot and would provide all the necessities such as chairs, fans, electricity and other facilities before the health department could come in.
Dr Annuar, who is also Assistant Minister of Education, Science and Technological Research pointed out that those who came for vaccination at Sibu Central Market last weekend are not just young people, but also senior citizens.
That showed that not all senior citizens in Sibu had been vaccinated, he said.
“I think there are a few reasons. Maybe there was no transportation before, or maybe they only decided to take the vaccine now. So that is why this strategy is the best,” he said.
Dr Annuar said with the vaccination programme by appointment almost done, the mobile vaccination would be the best way to reach out to more people who have yet to be vaccinated.
The Nangka assemblyman also said that as SDDMC would still need another 5.5 per cent of eligible adults in Sibu to be vaccinated, it would focus on the mobile team, going from different places in Sibu, especially those with high population.
“We might go to ‘pasar malam’. I have suggested coming back here (Taman Selera Muhibah) at night as well. Maybe some people cannot come during the day, so they can come at night, or when they come for dine-in, they can also go for vaccination.
“Yesterday we had 120 people being vaccinated here, it is a very good response. If we go to a few more places, we will identify more people to be vaccinated, and we might also go there again, like maybe this place (Taman Selera Muhibah), we may repeat it (walk-in vaccination programme here) and we will also go to other markets as well,” he said.
The two-day vaccination programme at Taman Selera Muhibah ends today.
Meanwhile, Ting said council’s action to require everyone to present their vaccination certificates or cards before allowed entry into every premise managed by the council was part of the effort to encourage people to get vaccinated.
“People said, ‘oh, the government is forcing me’. Actually, we are not, we are doing this for the safety of everybody, so I think the medical side can testify to this,” Ting said.
Dr Annuar then added that out of 11 Covid-19 cases reported in Sibu yesterday, nine were Class 1 cases while the other two were Class 2 cases.
Class 1 are those who are asymptomatic, and Class 2 are those with mild symptoms with no pneumonia.
“Vaccination might not give you 100 per cent protection, but it will protect you from severe symptoms. You are not being shielded, the virus can still attack you, but you will only get mild symptoms,” he pointed out.