IN recent times, in three out of every five scrolls on Facebook we read qualms and moans on the national Covid-19 immunisation plan: “Why can’t I choose my vaccination? Why is the vaccination roll-out so slow?”

The other part of the story will be from the government, where thousands failed to show up for their vaccination in Kelantan and recently Melacca.

The quote: “the best vaccine is the one available to you now” has been going around quite a bit.

However, the cry for vaccine democracy is as loud too.

Personally, I am not one who would be picky about my vaccine, as long as it is approved by the Centres for Disease Control and the World Health Organisation, it comforts me.

To each their own, they say. I have once outlined this five-point policy recommendation in a tweet response to the vaccine rollout plan announcement.

Today, I would like to reiterate them again here:

Allow for the rakyat to choose if they want to vaccinate in a public or private facility – store vaccination records in the MyKad record (or MySejahtera) – faster rollout of vaccination and reduce burden on public healthcare.

Implement the policy where you will require proof of vaccination (either MyKad or MySejahtera) before patients are treated – if you do not vaccinate, you will be required to pay for your treatment (for public hospitals) – people will have to be responsible for the decisions they make, eg whether to vaccinate.

Require proof of vaccination to cross state and national borders, thus significantly reducing clusters.

Perkeso and the Ministry of Higher Education to encourage organisations to include vaccination as a requirement for employment/university enrollment, thus reducing clusters and ensure business continuity.

Clear and mass communication on disease awareness and consequences of not vaccinating via national television, Facebook and Youtube ads – to educate the public and alleviate the fear of vaccination spread by Whatsapp forwarded messages.

I still standby these recommendations. In fact, I do reckon we should further expand the purpose of MySejahtera to be a super-health app that allows for medical records to be stored of each individual to be recorded and stored in the system.

While we are on the MySejathera topic, I would also recommend for there to be only one app for contact tracing and storing of vaccination and other medical records.

The data stored can help save lives as medical history of patients will be readily available for practitioners to make informed decisions when prescribing treatment.

Furthermore, this data can also help understand the budgeting needs as well as the right policy to be implemented for the public healthcare sector, but that is a story for another article.

Till then, I urge all of you to stay safe, stay home and please get vaccinated. – May 30, 2021.

* Nesha Armo is a government relations and public policy strategist.

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.