BY PENERANGAN
KUCHING: A total of 3,000 people received their first dose of AstraZeneca vaccine at the vaccination centre in Borneo Convention Centre Kuching (BCCK) which entered its fourth day of operation today compared to only 1,000 people in the first three days of operation.
According to Public Medicare Group (PMG) chief executive officer Hwang Chiong Ann, only 500 recipients were scheduled to receive the injections daily from June 7 to 9 as they were still in warming-up sessions to ensure the vaccination process runs smoothly.
“The seemingly deserted condition of the vaccination centre is actually due to the system which is arranged based on appointment time which allocates a small number of attendees at one time to avoid congestion as well as to speed up the vaccination process and provide comfort to the recipients.
“In addition, there are also among the recipients who are unable to attend on the scheduled date due to health problems and unavoidable factors.
“They will be given a new appointment date,” he explained, refuting viral allegations on social media that the vaccination centre was deserted because the registered recipients refused to attend their appointments.
Meanwhile, a recipient of the vaccine Mazenah Bujang, 71, said she signed up to get the vaccine on her own volition as she realised it was the best way to boost her body’s immunity and to avoid herself from getting infected by Covid-19.
For 77-year-old Poji Bujang, he said he asked his grandchild to help register his name as a vaccine recipient because he wanted to protect himself as well as other family members from Covid-19 infection.
One of the PMG health workers Dr Arnold Lee said they had set up a treatment room at the centre to monitor the condition of the recipients.
“For those who are healthy and do not have any illness, they will be asked to wait for 15 minutes before being allowed to go home while 30 minutes for recipients who have illness,” he added.
The second dose of AstraZeneca vaccine will be given to recipients 12 weeks after they received the first dose.
BCCK officially started operating on June 7 as one of the AstraZeneca vaccination centres in Sarawak apart from the National Youth Skills Institute in Miri.
It starts operating as early as 8am every Monday to Friday and 8am to 5pm on Saturday and Sunday.
