THE Penang government has urged the Health Ministry to assist the Penang Health Department in restructuring the health facilities in the state.
Chief Minister Chow Kon Yeow said the restructuring of health facilities was important for the state to meet the health demands caused by the increase in new Covid-19 cases in Penang.
“The number of Covid-19 cases in Penang is on an upward trend since last week and the Penang executive council (exco) has called for the state government to double up its effort to flatten the infection curve,” he told reporters after visiting the Penang Covid-19 mass screening (PSC-19) in Komtar today.
On the National Immunisation Programme (NIP), Chow said Penang has fully received over 700,000 doses of Covid-19 vaccine in July as scheduled.
“Although we have also received the scheduled supply this week, we were told by the Special Committee on Covid-19 Vaccine Supply Access Guarantee (JKJAV) that the Minister had requested for ‘more time’ to study the Covid-19 vaccine supply for the coming weeks in August.
“The Penang government is still awaiting more information from the Federal Government pertaining to the supply of vaccine for the coming weeks this month.
“We hope that the issue concerning vaccine deliveries from foreign countries to be distributed to the states will be addressed soon.
“We do not want the NIP in Penang to be disrupted due to vaccine delivery hiccups.
“Vaccine is the protection that we can give to the rakyat to protect them against Covid-19,” he said.
On question whether the state would consider buying its own Covid-19 vaccine, Chow said the issue was not due to insufficient vaccine.
“The Federal Government has procured the Covid-19 vaccine amounting to 130% of the national population.
“Vaccine is sufficient. It is just that the deliveries face hiccups at times. The weekly vaccine deliveries to Penang in July were good.
“We hope that the deliveries in August will also be as scheduled,” Chow said.
He said Penang expects to achieve 100% of its adult population receiving the first dose of vaccine by early September.
“We can achieve our target earlier if we receive more vaccines faster than scheduled.
“As for achieving herd immunity based on adult population, we hope to achieve it by late September or early October this year,” he said.
Chow said there were over 40 Covid-19 clusters in Penang.
“Yes, there are clusters from workplace and factories.
“But, we cannot deny that there are also sporadic cases within the community.
“The people must continue to follow the standard operating procedures (SOPs) and the NIP needs to be accelerated,” he said.
Meanwhile, state exco member Jagdeep Singh Deo said 19,988 individuals had been screened so far under the state’s PSC-19 after it was held at 25 locations throughout the state.
The PSC-19 in Komtar is the 26th location.
“Some 2.59% of the total individual screened were found to be Covid-19 positive (after RT-PCR test),” he said.
Jagdeep, who is the Local Government, Housing, Town and Country Planning Committee chairman, said the Tokyo Olympics is currently ongoing.
“We are eager to see who can break their respective records at the Olympics.
“But here, while we are busy fighting the Covid-19, we do not want to break any record. Unfortunately, it happened.
“Penang broke its record yesterday with 867 cases. In Malaysia, another record has been broken yesterday with 19,819 cases.
“We are not proud of those records.
“We have to break our record by bringing down the Covid-19 cases,” he said, urging the people to register for the vaccination and obey the SOPs.
Also present were Komtar assemblyman Teh Lai Heng, Penang Island City Council mayor Datuk Yew Tung Seang, Penang police chief Comm Datuk Mohd Shuhaily Mohd Zain, and Northeast district police chief ACP Soffian Santong.
Story by Christopher Tan
Pix by Muhamad Amir Irsyad Omar
Video by Adleena Rahayu Ahmad Radzi