SHORTAGE of vaccines and the emergence of new clusters at factories allowed to run during lockdown are driving up Covid-19 numbers in Penang, Deputy Chief Minister II P. Ramasamy said.

As of yesterday, the state’s incidence rate stood at 95.55 while its seven-day average was 1,726 cases.

Penang, which the state government touts as the Silicon Valley of the East, has recorded more than 80,000 cases since the start of the pandemic.

The incidence rate refers to the number of new cases in a population within a period of time.

Penang has sought the help of Selangor, another Pakatan Harapan state, to deal with the shortage of vaccines.

Selangor has agreed to loan Penang 200,000 doses, while donating another 20,000 shots.

“We are still waiting for more vaccines to come to Penang.

“We have to work out a mechanism where if Penang has reached its target, then whatever is due to Penang can be diverted to Selangor,” he said while explaining the possible way the vaccine loan can be returned.

As of August 28, 54% of the adult population in the state or 738,414 people have been vaccinated with two doses, while 82% or 1.12 million have received one dose.

Ramasamy said about 1.38 million out of the 1.7 million population in Penang will have to be vaccinated.

“We should get our population vaccinated as fast as possible with two doses,” he said.

“Right now, we might be slightly delayed because we need supplies from the federal government to proceed.

“We have our vaccination centres but if you don’t have vaccines, what good is that?” he said, adding that vaccination centres may have to be closed temporarily after running out of supplies.

However, he said he understood the situation as there was no federal government or cabinet for a week, which may have led to some delays in the order of business.

Chief Minister Chow Kon Yeow said on August 15 that four centres – Dewan Milenium in Kepala Batas, the pesta site in Sungai Nibong, the Balik Pulau Sports Complex in Balik Pulau and Dewan Balai Rakyat in Bayan Baru – had to be closed for a day due to shortages, affecting several thousand people.

Chow said the shortage was due to the disruption in Pfizer’s international supply chain but was hopeful it would be resolved soon.

He added that, in view of the disruption, second doses at several public-private partnership industrial Covid-19 immunisation programme centres and private hospitals had to be rescheduled or delayed for a few days.

Rising infections

Ramasamy said rising infections were also partly attributed to ramped up testing. However, he was still alarmed by the number of cases coming out of factories.

At the same time, our problem is the clusters from factories,” the Perai assemblyman said.

“The real problem is the Ministry of International Trade and Industry allowing factories to open.

“I can understand it is for the economy but the point is that the infections are not going away, so I think probably the infections will go up and then come down as more and more people are vaccinated.”

“Even those who are vaccinated are getting infected, but maybe the infections are not as severe as those without vaccination.

Ramasamy also slammed the previous cabinet for the lack of synchronicity between the Ministry of International Trade and Industry and other agencies, adding that the Health Ministry should have been at the forefront.

“If the federal government cannot get its act together, the states cannot be blamed because we were asking from the beginning to be allowed to buy vaccines,” he said.

“Director-general of health Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah alone cannot handle it (the pandemic). It has to be the entire team and government.”

However, Ramasamy lauded new Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin for doing a fair job during his previous appointment as science, technology and innovation minister.

He is also pinning his hopes that with Khairy now at the helm, the Health Ministry will be able to take over some of the functions which other agencies could not manage well. – August 30, 2021.