KUALA LUMPUR, March 22 — Penang Chief Minister Chow Kon Yeow is appealing to Putrajaya to enforce the Safe@Work initiative on factories and the manufacturing sector to squash the high number of active Covid-19 clusters in the sector.

He said the active clusters in Penang recently involved the Juru Immigration Detention Depot and factories so the Health Ministry will need to analyse the risks involved.

"We are repeating our call to MITI to enforce the Safe@Work initiative on factories in Penang as the clusters involving factory workers are still active,” he said after receiving his second dose of the Covid-19 vaccine today.

He added that he hopes the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (Miti) will step up enforcement of Safe@Work on factories to control the spread of Covid-19 among workers.

"We also hope that vaccination for this group will be sped up due to the risks involved,” he said.

Penang recorded a total of 205 new Covid-19 cases as of March 21, out of which 70 were from workplace screenings and 53 from the DTI Juru Cluster.

Chow said about 31,000 frontliners in Penang will be vaccinated under the first phase of the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme in Penang.

He said, so far, 28,316 individuals have received the first dose of the vaccine, while another 3,000 more still in line.

"The administration of the second dose in Penang started a few days ago, and as of March 21, a total of 328 have received their second dose,” he said.

He said a total of 440,185 individuals in Penang have registered for the vaccine and that he hopes more will register soon.

Today, Chow along with Chief Minister I Datuk Ahmad Zakiyuddin Abdul Rahman and Deputy Chief Minister II P. Ramasamy received the second dose of the Covid-19 vaccine.