Dine-in and entry to malls still allowed for unboosted Sinovac recipients and senior citizens from 1st April despite losing fully vaxxed status

Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin has issued a statement on the SOPs for citizens who will lose their fully vaccinated status this Friday. As announced earlier, Sinovac recipients and senior citizens (fully vaccinated with all vaccine types), are required to get their booster shot by 31st of March 2022 to retain their fully vaccinated status on MySejahtera.

According to the statement, individuals who have completed their COVID-19 vaccine primer series but have not yet received their booster will still have their vaccine records in the MySejahtera app. This group of individuals will still be allowed to carry on their activities similar to other fully vaccinated individuals including dine-in at restaurants, entering shopping malls, workplaces, and places of worship.

Therefore, the Ministry of Health (MOH) is urging all premise owners to check if individuals have completed their COVID-19 vaccine primer series. The statement added that an individual is considered fully vaccinated with the primer vaccine 14 days after receiving the second jab of a two-dose vaccine (e.g. Pfifzer, AstraZeneca or Sinovac) or 14 days after receiving a single jab of a single-dose vaccine (e.g. CanSino or Johnson & Johnson).

For incoming travellers from overseas, they are reminded to follow the set SOPs which require travellers to be fully vaccinated and received a booster shot before being allowed to enter premises.

Although unboosted individuals are given leeway to dine-in and perform other activities, the MOH emphasised that this doesn’t mean they are no longer required to get a booster. It added that data has shown levels of protection against COVID-19 have dropped as much as 20% for individuals who have received two doses of Pfizer and as much as 48% for individuals who have been fully vaccinated with two doses of Sinovac in a period of three to five months. A booster shot is recommended to increase the levels of antibodies and to reduce the severity of symptoms if a person contracts COVID-19.

The latest SOP update can make verification more complicated as entrance staff and guards at premises would have to go through the tedious process of checking each individuals’ vaccine cert and the date of their last dose. Since unboosted Sinovac recipients and senior citizens can still enjoy similar freedoms as boosted individuals, it would probably make more sense for MySejahtera to retain the “fully vaccinated” status on the check-in page and introduce a new “fully vaccinated + boosted” status for those who have gotten their booster jab.

As of 29th March 2022, 22.9 million (97.5%) adults in Malaysia have been fully vaccinated and 15.7 million (66.8%) have received their boosters. This leaves 7.2 million adults remaining who have not yet received their booster jab. It is estimated that over 2.3 million unboosted adults will lose their fully vaccinated status on 1st April.

[ SOURCE, IMAGE SOURCE ]

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