After almost a year of suffering in the Covid-19 pandemic, the announcement by Pfizer-BionTech on the 9th of November 2020 that their Phase 3 trials have achieved success was welcomed with immense joy by the entire world. By the end of 2020, it seemed as if there was light at the end of the tunnel. There was hope that this nightmare would end and we could finally put the pandemic behind us as we moved into 2021.
In Malaysia, the Prime Minister announced in December 2020 that Malaysia had gained access to vaccines for 82.8% of the Malaysian population. However, not long after, Covid-19 cases started spiking, hitting four digits for the first time, prompting the government to impose a Conditional Movement Control Order in early January.
At the time of writing, 7,226,949 doses have been given with more than 2 million of those being the second dose. However, the road to this number has been filled with hiccups. The slow rollout of the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme (PICK) has been frustrating for a lot of people. Many older people are still waiting for their vaccines as more high risk groups are being included into the phases that were previously announced.
Then, just last week, news came out that several vaccination centres ran out of vaccines due to the higher vaccination rates. Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation, Khairy Jamaluddin announced that there is only 1 million doses left in vaccine stock but more is expected to arrive in July. Rachael Francis ‘14 shared,
“Like many others waiting for their appointments, I haven’t gotten mine yet. With the news of vaccine shortage in many PPVs and new stock only coming in July, there may be a possible backlog for scheduled and unscheduled appointments so my hope is that JKJAV is able to quickly handle this without causing further delays and a messy crisis.”
For some people, the voluntary registrations for the AstraZeneca vaccine was a much welcomed news. The Astra Zeneca vaccine was initially taken off the national vaccination programme due to concerns that it would discourage vaccine registration as people worry about potential side effects linked to blood clots from the Astra Zeneca vaccine. While countries in Europe and the UK itself flip-flopped on their advice on the vaccine, the opt in program was announced for those in the Klang Valley.
Perhaps surprising to some, the voluntary registrations were met with an overwhelming response. The first round which opened on May 2nd had all 268,000 slots booked in under four hours despite some initial glitches.
Chia Yaw Kwan’ 20 recalls not hearing about it until it was shared in the 2020 cohort Fellows Whatsapp group. He said that the registration was fast as not as many people knew about it. Many young people got the chance to sign themselves up as well as their elderly family members to get slots.
The second round of the registrations which was opened to those in the Klang Valley, Johor, Penang and Sarawak was perhaps the most chaotic. Many netizens reported being unable to click on their preferred slots, or was told it was fully booked after clicking on the available slots.
Munirah ‘19 characterised it as “macam berperang” and Calvin Tan ‘15 shared how it felt like buying concert tickets, so antithetical to the gravity of the situation. Some who were let down on the registration day, found their MySejahtera updated with appointment slots as they too will be vaccinated from the pool of 1.24 million doses offered in the round. Not long ago, it was announced that the AstraZeneca vaccine will be incorporated into the mainstream immunisation programme due to the good response.
When we ran a poll on our Instagram account, almost 66% of respondents have been vaccinated with at least 1 dose. This is an encouraging indicator and considering the general age range of the community, no doubt many of those vaccinated were largely due to the AstraZeneca opt in.
The administration of the vaccine itself has been a smooth process by most people’s reports. Yaw Kwan ‘20 shared that the process at PWTC was very smooth even though he was five minutes late. Many netizens have also commented that the process has been fast and hassle-free.
Michelle ‘20 was impressed with how fast issues were handled as she was told by a doctor at the vaccination centre that she would be unable to get the vaccine due to getting the HPV vaccine only a week earlier. Despite this, she managed to secure a different appointment and receive the Sinovac vaccine only two weeks later. Everything was also confirmed through her MySejahtera app!
A teaching alumni from Selangor shared with us her frustrations of trying to sign up for the AstraZeneca vaccine but was still unsuccessful after both rounds. However, she was lucky to get vaccinated under the allocation for Form 4 and Form 5 teachers through the Ministry of Education – only two weeks ago! She says,
‘It’s like a mixture of emotions. On the one hand, I’m glad that I got vaccinated but I also feel bad that some people have waited so long for the vaccine but have not heard any news about getting it.’
She was asked to fill in a Google Sheet by her school, listing down her risk level, vaccine status and date of vaccine registration. This form was then sent to the local PPD office. When asked if there was any hesitancy among teachers on receiving the vaccine, she said that a teacher had asked in the school group if the registration was mandatory, and was told to fill in the form first. Most teachers were reportedly on board and were just waiting for a chance to get vaccinated.
Needless to say, our community has been overwhelmingly pro-vaccine. Besides the relatively high vaccination rate, 90% of people who responded to our Instagram poll say that the vaccine brand would not influence their decision to take the vaccine.
Many of our alumni shared messages on Instagram to encourage people to take the vaccine on top of also sharing on their own social medias about their vaccination experiences while further dispelling any false assumptions about the different vaccine brands as well as vaccination in general.
Rachael ‘14 reminds us, ‘There are vulnerable groups in our community who are unable to take the vaccine yet so they need able bodied people like us to take it so that we can collectively build herd immunity.’
We hope that the situation in Malaysia improves soon so that we can reach the light at the end of the tunnel. In the meantime, chin up and hold on to a shot of hope.
*All information provided is correct at the time of writing
© June 2021 – Deepa Gaurie ’20
Links for further reading about Covid-19 vaccines:
Teach For Malaysia Alumni Network 