Several trade associations that represent shopping malls, retailers, and theme parks have jointly released a statement as a response to Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin’s remarks regarding privileges for individuals that have completed their COVID-19 vaccination.
Led by the Malaysia Shopping Malls Association (PPKM), they are generally in support of the government’s plan to tone down the SOPs for fully vaccinated individuals. Through today’s joint statement, the trade associations have also provided their own suggestions regarding the plan.
While the government has previously said that Malaysia would achieve herd immunity after 80% of its population have been fully vaccinated, these trade associations believe that 70% is already good enough. Hence, they have suggested that the government should allow retail stores to be operational again when at least 70% of its working crew have completed their vaccination.
Not only that, they also suggest that retail stores and shopping malls should only allow those that have been fully vaccinated to enter their premises. In order to do this, the malls would check customers’ vaccination status inside the MySejahtera app as an additional method to the current SOPs which include temperature and infection risk.
Ultimately, these trade associations believe that these implementations would turn shopping malls into “green bubble” areas. It remains to be seen whether the government will warm up to these ideas especially considering that only 23.1% of the country’s population have been fully vaccinated so far but nevertheless, the answer should come soon enough as indicated by PM Muhyiddin.
(Source: PPKM [pdf]. Image: JKJAV / Twitter.)
