KUALA LUMPUR – All 268,600 vaccination slots under the government’s voluntary AstraZeneca registration programme have been snapped up, less than four hours after they were opened at 12pm today.
Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Khairy Jamaluddin tweeted that all the slots have been fully booked at around 3.20pm today.
He apologised for an earlier glitch when the website first went live.
“All AZ slots are fully booked.
“My apologies for the initial glitch and multiple refreshes.
“You can still click on the grey boxes to put yourself on the waitlist for the next couple of hours.
“We will start pushing appts (appointments) to your (MySejahtera) or SMS soon,” said Khairy in his tweet.
Despite the website suffering from extremely heavy traffic minutes after its launch, it was functioning normally soon after.
Earlier, complaints by members of the public on WhatsApp groups arose, with many saying they were unable to register, adding that while options to choose their preferred dates and vaccination centre (PPVs) appear, no confirmations were received once they clicked “Submit”.
The first vaccination centres to be filled up were Universiti Malaya and Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, which were both fully boooked at around 2.45pm today.
The other vaccination centres are the World Trade Centre Kuala Lumpur and Ideal Convention Centre Shah Alam.
The ministry has promised that 268,600 doses of AstraZeneca vaccines will be made available on a voluntary basis in Selangor and Kuala Lumpur to address the people’s concerns and fears about the vaccine, apart from not wanting to disrupt the ongoing immunisation programme.
Last week, the government announced that the vaccine will be offered on a first-come, first-served basis to residents.
Studies show that the AstraZeneca vaccine has a 0.0004% probability of forming blood clots in recipients, or in one out of every 250,000 individuals. – The Vibes, May 2, 2021
