THE AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine will no longer be an opt-in, but will be part of the nationwide coronavirus vaccination drive, said National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme Co-ordinating Minister Khairy Jamaluddin.

“The opt-in option was due to the hesitancy of the public to take the vaccine after reports of blood clots.

“After seeing the reception in the first and second phase of the opt-in, it’s evident that the hesitancy toward AstraZeneca has reduced,” he said today.

The MySejahtera app will be upgraded to allow the public to choose the vaccine that they want, he told a virtual press conference.

“It is cleaner to do everything on MySejahtera and encourage people to use the app. It will allow people to choose their appointment dates, place and type vaccine.”

Khairy, who is also Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation, apologised to Malaysians over the AstraZeneca sign up debacle yesterday.

“As the minister in charge, I apologise to all who had problems on the website for opt-in, especially to those who were not successful. It could have been better executed,” he said.

Khairy said 610,000 AstraZeneca doses were expected to arrive next month and another 410,000 in July.

Yesterday, registration for the third round of the AstraZeneca opt-in programme, specifically for those under the age of 60, opened at 12.15pm but closed about an hour later with a notice that all slots had been filled within that hour.

The booking website ceased to function for many people, leaving them frustrated after repeatedly refreshing the page to no avail, while some were not able to access the site at all.

Many vented their anger on social media, comparing their attempts to secure an appointment slot to that of the film The Hunger Games.

Many also scolded Khairy on Twitter, chiding him for failing to ensure a workable registration system, with some users saying they were IT experts and gave their own solutions on how they would have built a registration website.

Today, there were reports that those who seemingly failed to have their attempted registrations approved received notices on their MySejahtera app of a vaccination appointment. 

The fiasco has led to calls for the developer of the online registration system to be revealed.

Addressing this, Khairy said the purported RM70 million the government spent on the website was not an accurate figure.

He said the RM70 million was just the “ceiling” and was not used solely for the website.

“This money was used as a ceiling for developing not only the website but the national immunisation programme, the dashboard, data integration, portal for registration, genomic surveillance, immunisation surveillance, digital passport for MySejahtera and logistics for vaccine delivery.”

Meanwhile, Khairy said he has approved the list of media personnel for the next stage of the vaccination programme and appointments will be given starting in the first week of June. – May 27, 2021.