MEF: Employers Should Do More to Help Country Achieve Herd Immunity

According to the Malaysian Employers Federation (MEF), employers should take a more active role in helping the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme (NIP) to achieve herd immunity as early as possible.

 

Employers should encourage their workers to get vaccinated

Its president, Datuk Dr Syed Hussain Syed, said that employers should brief their staff on the importance of vaccination and help them sign up. Employees, especially the ones at the lower levels of employment, may find it hard to use the MySejahtera application.

According to MEF, here are some actions that employers should take:

• Provide time off or leave to employees that will undergo vaccination,
• Set up a help desk at the workplace to educate their employees so that they can pass the message on the importance of vaccination to their families and friends. 

He said that these actions would complement the NIP, allowing Malaysia to achieve herd immunity in a shorter period. 

He said that employers could encourage better communication among their families and friends. Employers should also help educate people who still have doubts and fears about the Covid-19 vaccine.

if 80% of a population is immune to a virus, four out of every five people who encounter someone with the disease won't get sick (and won't spread the disease any further).
This way, the spread of infectious diseases is kept under control.

Achieving herd immunity

According to MEF's statement, as of June 2, the NIP reported 12.58 million or 51.9% of the adult population had signed up for vaccination. Meanwhile, the total number of vaccines administered was 3.21 million doses. 2.1 million people had received one dose, while 1.11 million had completed both doses. 

He said that to achieve the desired herd immunity, the government aims to vaccinate 25 million or 80% of the adult population in Malaysia by the end of 2021. 

According to Dr Syed Hussain, Malaysia needs at least 12 million more people to register and be vaccinated against Covid-19 to achieve herd immunity. The attendance rate among those who have signed up was about 80% on average. 

MEF asserted that both registration and average attendance rates show that vaccine hesitancy remains a problem. 

 

MEF addresses the government's SOP

The MEF president commended the government's efforts in securing the vaccines for Malaysians but emphasised that it should be clear and consistent concerning the communication of standard operating procedure (SOP) and Covid-19 vaccinations.

He said that there should not be ad hoc changes on implementation of SOP and guidelines that could cause confusion among employers, employees and the people. 

He added that if the confusion and inconsistencies persist, Malaysians may lose confidence in the movement control order (MCO) laws prescribed to them. 

"Moving forward, we hope all communications would have been discussed intra-agencies and departments and the execution is tested before roll-out," said Dr Syed Hussain.

 

Source: The Edge Markets

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