SCIENCE, Technology and Innovation Minister Khairy Jamaluddin today assured that the Covid-19 vaccines procured by Malaysia are safe and effective. 

The minister in charge of coordinating the National Covid-19 Immunisation Plan said the vaccine has been tested on thousands of people to ascertain its safety. 

“Millions of people across the globe have received their jab. There is no proof the vaccine is dangerous for their lives or health,” he said in a statement. 

“The vaccine does not change the DNA of the recipient. The vaccine does not contain microchips that can control our thoughts. The vaccine is not an Illuminati agenda to form a New World Order,” he added. 

In saying that, he said it is important to have faith in science instead of fake news containing conspiracy theories often circulated via WhatsApp groups. 

Khairy said if people are confident with science, then they will have more faith in the vaccine.

He said with more people inoculated, infections, deaths and intensive care unit cases will recede.

This will bode well for economic and social activities as the restrictions can be relaxed, he said.

Citing statistics, he said as of December last year 773,000 people or 4.8% of the population were unemployed as many businesses had wound up or downsized. 

Malaysia’s economy, on the other hand, contracted by 5.6% in 2020. 

Although Malaysia had beaten the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) and Asian Development Bank’s projection of a gross domestic product contraction of 5.8% and 6.0%, the negative growth still has an impact on the economy. 

Therefore, he said the successful implementation of the National Covid-19 Immunisation Plan is key to ensuring the economy recovers. 

The IMF has revised its  2021 GDP projection for Malaysia from 5.2% to 5.5% on the back of the implementation of the immunisation plan. 

The World Bank, on the other hand, is expecting a GDP growth of 6.7%, provided the effective implementation of the immunisation programme, coupled with a positive growth in exports and foreign direct investment. 

“The National Covid-19 Immunisation Plan is important to ensure the projection is achieved. With this programme, the economic recovery process will go on smoothly and more economic activities can be opened,” he said.

Therefore, any hindrance to the programme and the ongoing pandemic will only fuel uncertainties and force the government to impose the movement-control order like the current one. 

On that note, Khairy urged the public to support the programme by signing up, so that the country is able to achieve herd immunity and the economy recovers.

Malaysia is set to receive its first batch of the vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech at the end of this month. This will be followed by China’s Sinovac. 

Putrajaya has also inked procurement deals with Britain’s AstraZeneca, Russia’s Sputnik V and China’s CanSino. 

The government is looking to vaccinate around 26.6 million people. – February 14, 2021.