Dr Annuar Rapaee
SIBU (May 9): Sibu Divisional Disaster Management Committee (SDDMC) coordinator Dr Annuar Rapaee has urged local folk who have been notified to go to the Sibu Indoor Stadium to receive their Covid-19 vaccines to follow the time allocated in the appointment.
During his Facebook live stream last night, he said a large crowd had turned up on last Friday morning because many people did not go to the vaccination centre according to the time allocated in the appointment.
He was made to understand that there were also people who went to the vaccination centre as early as 6am and waited at the gate, thinking that they would be getting their slots first.
“There is no need to do that, come 15 minutes before the vaccination, it is alright,” he said.
He pointed out that the medical staff could not give the slot to them if they did not follow the time allocated in the appointment.
“Come according to your allocated time, there is no need to come two hours earlier or three hours earlier.
“When your name is registered on that allocated time, your name will be there, it will not be changed or the vaccine will be used up if you come later. No, there is no such thing.
“So, I am asking everyone who come for the vaccination to always be patient because we do not want Indoor Stadium Cluster to emerge due to unorganised vaccination programme,” he said.
Dr Annuar said he was made to understand that the Ministry of Health (MoH) has allocated 150 people to be vaccinated every hour to avoid overcrowding at the vaccination centre.
He said unless the recipients did not show up for vaccination, the recipients’ name would not be cancelled even if they missed the time allocation in the appointment.
“If that person did not show up at all, after 5pm, we will give their slot to other people, to our frontliner who has yet to be vaccinated,” he said.
He said SDDMC would be holding a meeting with the health department today to improve the system to ensure that vaccination could be done smoothly.
He also said that he would provide more facilities especially chairs for the convenience of the senior citizens at the vaccination centre.
Meanwhile, Dr Annuar also urged parents to ensure that their children do not mix around with other children during the school holidays.
According to him, almost 25 per cent of the positive cases in Sibu consisted of young children.
He said most of the cases were either asymptomatic or with mild symptoms.
“They can spread the virus to adults. So that is why we need to monitor these young children during school holidays,” he added.
He said while he understood that it would be quite difficult to monitor and control young children from mixing around, this is important to avoid the spread of the virus especially at the flat area in Sibujaya.