The Malaysian Insight

FOR 50-year-old taxi driver Mohamad, every day is full of uncertainties as he comes into contact with passengers whose health status is unknown.

Mohamad is just one of thousands of taxi and e-hailing drivers living in fear of Covid-19, and waiting to be vaccinated.

“I leave it to the Almighty. Now there are a lot of asymptomatic cases, and I do not know whether there are the silent carriers who board my taxi.

“If they have symptoms, I can perhaps tell them to get out of the taxi but it is hard to tell.

“It is daunting, but I still need to put food on the table. It will be good if the government can consider vaccinating us soon and consider us front-liners,” Mohamad said.

With Covid-19 cases and deaths on the rise, taxi and e-hailing groups have urged the government to prioritise their members for vaccination.

Gabungan Teksi SeMalaysia president Kamaruddin Hussain said his association has some 40,000 members nationwide and appealed to the government to expedite the vaccination for taxi drivers.

“Right from the first movement-control order (MCO), we were one of the essential sectors that kept the country going. We should be considered as front-liners too,” he told The Malaysian Insight.

“We are driving passengers and we are at risk of exposure to Covid-19. We hope the government will consider prioritising us,” he said.

At this juncture, he said, there are no special channels for drivers to receive the vaccination under the national Covid-19 immunisation programme. They will have to register and wait for their turn like other Malaysians.

“There was one driver who died from Covid-19 on June 6 at Ampang Hospital. However, we do not know how he contracted the virus,” he said.

Kamaruddin also asked the government to simplify the vaccination registration process because there are many taxi drivers who are not tech savvy and unable to register through MySejahtera.

“Some have suggested that they should be allowed to drive to vaccination centres, provide their identity cards and get vaccinated right away,” he said, adding that drive through vaccination can be another option.

Malaysia yesterday recorded 5,671 new cases, taking the national caseload to 639,562. Another 73 deaths were reported, taking the death toll to 3,684.

Malaysia eHailing Drivers Association (Mehda) president Daryl Chong also echoed Kamaruddin’s call.

“We want the government to start giving priority to e-hailing drivers, since we are also considered economic front-liners,” he said.

Khairy Jamaluddin, the co-ordinating minister for the national immunisation programme, said yesterday that economic front-liners will be vaccinated in phase four of the programme to curb the spread of the coronavirus through workplace clusters.

He said this was for the critical economic sector, especially those that need to operate during the MCO, which includes manufacturing, export, logistics and utilities.

Chong suggested that Grab work with the Health Ministry or the Science, Technology and Innovation Ministry to incorporate the vaccination feature in its app.

“Grab is the largest e-hailing company in the country, with the most drivers, so if they want to register, they can always incorporate it in the app,” he said.

Any driver who is interested would just have to go through the app. It is easier because all the particulars are there. It is all linked under one app.”

Chong said drivers are concerned over their safety due to the volume of asymptomatic and sporadic cases.

“This is why we must be vaccinated quickly,” said Chong.

He added that their income might take a hit if they cannot go out to drive without some level of protection against the virus.

He said drivers could at least carry out 80% of their routine if they have been immunised.

“Now they are so scared. A lot of them don’t dare go out because they don’t know if they are carrying someone who is infected,” Chong said.

However, he said there aren’t many cases of drivers contracting the virus from passengers.

Mehda has around 10,000 members driving for different e-hailing companies.

The national immunisation programme began on February 24 and to date 3.79 million doses of vaccine have been administered to the population.

Of this, 1.18 million people have completed the two-dose schedule.

Phase 2 of the national vaccination drive is currently underway. – June 11, 2021.