Bruce Chai
KUCHING (May 6): Sarawakians should have the choice of accepting the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine on a voluntary basis to speed up reaching herd immunity in the state, said Parti Sarawak Bersatu (PSB) Pujut chairman Bruce Chai.
Citing The Borneo Post’s recent online survey to gauge public views on whether Sarawakians should be given the choice of getting the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine and whether they wanted to be vaccinated with it, Chai said there is “overwhelming support” to have the option of the vaccine in the state.
Chai said assuming most, if not all, of the 1,026 survey respondents were indeed Sarawakians, an overwhelming 69.2 per cent believed Sarawakians should but given the choice of AstraZeneca, while 52.7 per cent said they would sign up for it.
“This could possibly be attributed to a higher number of respondents being in the high risk category of AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine and were less willing to get vaccinated with AstraZeneca but would still like to see its approval to be accepted in Sarawak on a volunteer basis,” he said in a Facebook post yesterday.
“So why agree to allow AstraZeneca into Sarawak while less willing to take it? Simple, if you let the low risk group of the population take AstraZeneca, it would leave more vaccines of other brands available to high risk group that may not be suitable for AstraZeneca.”
According to him, the state should not just wait for other brands of the vaccine as AstraZeneca is more readily available and Malaysia has secured around 12.8 million doses of it.
“If you take AstraZeneca doses out of the equation, there will be a shortfall of doses available and it will take a longer time to get to herd immunity in 70 to 80 per cent of the population,” he reasoned.
He said while Malaysia has ordered a large number of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, there is a huge demand for that vaccine worldwide, which could result in delivery delays.
Chai also pointed out that the AstraZeneca vaccine is easier to store and transport, making it suitable for both urban and rural use.
He stressed that all governments want to reach herd immunity of 70 to 80 per cent as quickly and as safely as possible not just to return to normality but to reduce the chance of the virus mutating.
According to him, this made it necessary for Sarawak to get a substantial number of vaccine doses of different brands so that a large segment of the population could be inoculated as quickly as possible.
He pointed out the benefits of AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine far outweigh the risks, which affect a very minute number of the population.
“The risk can be further lowered if high-risk groups (below 40 years old) are not given this type of vaccine,” he said, adding millions of doses have been administered in countries such as the United Kingdom, where reports and advisories could be used as guidelines.