SIBU, Aug 11: Five-kg bags of rice were given to the first 100 voluntary recipients of the Covid-19 vaccine at a mobile vaccination programme at Jalan Tapang on Monday.
A political secretary to the Chief Minister, Michael Tiang said giving out the rice was aimed at encouraging the vaccination hesitant to get jabbed.
“We have prepared 100 bags of rice and gave out to those who came for the vaccination,” he said.
According to Tiang, the biggest challenge the team faced in running the vaccination programme here were the anti-vaxxers.
“What I want to emphasise is that since May when we held the vaccination programme, if people asked us what is our biggest challenge, I want to make clear that the biggest challenge is not about whether you are healthy or not or whether you are a foreign worker or whether you have an identity card or not as the biggest challenge is that there are some individuals who choose not to come to get their free vaccination.”
The Sarawak United Peoples’ Party (SUPP) Pelawan chairman said the government had been making concerted efforts by making vaccination easily available and at the people’s convenience.
However if there are still vaccine hesitants, then there was nothing else that the government could do.
“I think our government has made so much effort to make the vaccination programme so easy for the people to access and so convenient as there are now many vaccination stations but if the individual chooses not to come to receive their free vaccination, I don’t know what we can do. I think that is the biggest challenge,” he added.
Tiang urged those who have not gotten jabbed to do so as soon as possible as Covid-19 vaccination is free for everyone.
The programme at Tapang vaccinated 250 individuals. — DayakDaily
