KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 13 ― Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation, Khairy Jamaluddin has revealed that the registration for Covid-19 vaccines will begin in March 2021. The Covid-19 vaccines will be administered voluntarily and Malaysians will have to register their consent in order to receive the jab. Khairy, who is also the coordinating minister in charge of the national vaccination programme, has revealed five ways you can register for the Covid-19 vaccine when it is available.

MySejahtera app

As announced previously, the MySejahtera app will be used to register your consent to get the Covid-19 vaccine. This would probably be the easiest way to sign up on your phone as MySejahtera is currently the default national app for contact tracing with over 24 million registered users.

Covid-19 JKJAV website

For those without the app, the Special Vaccine Supply Access Guarantee Committee (JKJAV) will also introduce a website which would enable people to sign up online. The website will be launched next week by Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin.

Hotline phone number

Alternatively, there will be a hotline number where the public can call in. This would be the next best option for those without a smartphone or internet access.

Manual registrations

The government is also allowing the public to register manually for the Covid-19 vaccine at hospitals and clinics. This will be offered at both public and private healthcare sectors.

To reach out to senior citizens especially in rural areas, the government will also work closely with state governments to get them registered.

To recap, the vaccines will be administered in three phases. The government aims to prioritise its first batch of 500,000 vaccines for frontliners especially in healthcare, police, Rela, Bomba and civil defence sectors. This will be carried out until April 2021. To boost confidence in the vaccine, Khairy has also confirmed that the Prime Minister will be the first recipient of the national Covid-19 vaccination program.

The second phase which covers 9.4 million people will include senior citizens above 60 years old, people with non-communicable diseases and people with disabilities. The second vaccination phase is expected to run between April to August 2021.

For the remaining individuals including all adults aged 18 years and above, you will be getting the Covid-19 jab in Phase 3 which will run from May 2021 to February 2022.

During Khairy’s interview on Bernama TV last night, he shared that there are requests from people to be classified as frontliners and the authorities will evaluate the requests received. The government aims to vaccinate over 80 per cent of the population or 26.5 million people.

To achieve herd immunity, the government has announced that all non-citizens in the country including undocumented migrants will also receive the Covid-19 vaccination for free. The decision was made after considering several factors which include the cost of treating patients who are infected by foreign workers and the fact that foreign workers do contribute to the Malaysian economy. Similarly, other countries have also vaccinated Malaysian citizens at zero cost. ― SoyaCincau