The Science, Technology, and Innovation Minister, Khairy Jamaluddin has revealed that 505,565 people have signed up for COVID-19 vaccines through the national contact tracing app, MySejahtera. According to the tweet that was published at 5:09 PM, the half a million figure was recorded at around 4:30 PM today.
The vaccine sign-up through MySejahtera generally had begun yesterday when the app received a new update that bumped it up to version 1.0.28. This update has added a new section into the app called COVID-19 Vaccination which also contained a subsection labelled as “Vaccine for [user’s full name]” that users need to complete in order to obtain their vaccines.
Alternatively, they can also register themselves through the official website of the National COVID-19 Immunisation Programme (NCIP) as well as its upcoming hotline starting from 5 March 2021. Manual registration counters will be opened at public clinics and hospitals very soon while the government will also mobilise outreach teams to help register those who reside in rural areas.
The vaccination date and location will be provided two weeks before one is scheduled to receive the vaccine. Reminders will be provided through MySejahtera itself as well as phone calls and SMS, according to Minister Khairy in a press conference earlier today after the official kick-off for the NCIP which saw Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin as the first recipient of the COVID-19 vaccine from Pfizer-BioNTech.
Minister Khairy has also advised the public to register as soon as possible because NCIP’s data will be skewed towards their date of registration. That being said, those that are located in the red zones will be on the priority list, followed by yellow and green zones although the distribution will still adhere to the three phases of the NCIP.
(Source: @khairykj / Twitter, Minister Khairy’s press conference / Buletin TV3.)
