KOTA KINABALU: The government should be prepared to pay a higher price than the current market price to secure the Covid-19 vaccines, so that priority will be given to the many lives in Malaysia.
"Paying more in order to secure sufficient Covid-19 vaccines also makes economic sense because the cost of a single Covid-19 swab test is approximately 50 per cent higher than the cost of a dose of Covid-19 vaccine," said Yee Tsai Yiew during Parti Bersatu Sabah's (PBS) 35th annual delegates conference conducted online at Wisma Hakka yesterday.
"Once we have vaccinated enough people, we will not have to waste anymore money on expensive Covid-19 tests," said Yee, a delegate representing the Api-Api division when debating the president's policy speech.
She added that the number of quarantine centres will be reduced, hospital expenditures will be lowered, and most importantly, more lives will be saved.
Yee said this in urging the government to resolve the problem of Covid-19 vaccine shortage in the country.
She also urged the government to concentrate its full resources on vaccinating the people as soon as possible in order to gain herd immunity in the shortest possible time.
Apart from that, she suggested to make it a prerequisite for the people to register as vaccine recipients in order to receive government aid.
"This will speed up the process of registration and the government target of vaccinating 70 per cent of the population," Yee who is a lawyer by profession and daughter of PBS deputy president Datuk Dr Yee Moh Chai added.
