Speed Up Vaccinating Foreign Factory Workers Whether Legal Or Illegal They Are Highly Vulnerable

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 The levels of stupidity in this country are beyond mindboggling. This is the end result of 50 years of creating perhaps the dumbest society in the world. 
Todays news says:

Facebook posting by health DG on Covid-19 cases at workplace news of 299 workers of electronics factory positive for Covid-19workplace clusters account for large number of Covid-19 clustersyday, 19 of 24 new clusters from workplace data indicates serious problem in flattening the curveToday, 12 of 23 clusters from workplace
The wooden Cabinet has already decided in February 2021 that the 'free' vaccination program be extended to bukan warganegara. 






So it is halal to vaccinate all the foreigners in this country. 
What has the wooden Cabinet done to expedite vaccinating the foreigners, especially the factory workers?
Please now is not the time to see if they are legals, illegals, if they have travel documents or no etc. Whether legal or illegal most of them have already been forced to pay some bribe to someone to get into the country, they have paid bribes to someone to stay here and to continue working.  Now that b_stard ex Minister is being charged with corruption over that work permits scam.  "Original" Rohingya UNHCR Refugee cards can be bought for RM150.  
All this is water under the bridge.  The problem is complicated. Lets tackle it one step at a time. 
Step 1 - too many of these foreign workers (legal, illegal) are in the high risk 'factory clusters'. They are already here, living and walking amongst us. 
(Until five years ago, we used to live in a three-storey, super-link terrace house area. The entire area was middle class and up market Chinese.  Plenty of BMWs, Mercedes, Porsche Cayenne and Alphards. After we left, the rented house we lived in has become a "dormitory" for dont-know-how-many Bangladeshi workers. Our old neighbour is freaking out. They managed to contact us to get the phone number of the houseowner.)
Meaning the foreign workers really live and walk amongst us - even in upmarket housing areas.  And these foreigners are high risk folks. The factory clusters are super spreaders.
There is no point in all of us getting vaccinated when 3 million or 4 million foreigners in the country are still carrying the virus around. 
AND PLEASE DO NOT BE SO STUPID AND START CLAMPING DOWN ON ILLEGALS NOW - GET THEM VACCINATED FIRST.
Step 2 - With all the scare tactics and threats to arrest the foreigners NONE of the foreigners will step forward to get vaccinated - despite the vaccines being free.  
So please use otak.  Announce an amnesty - no action will be taken against foreigners living and working here legally or illegally. Send vaccination teams to the factories, park the van or truck outside the factories, get the workers to line up and jab them. No questions asked. No need to show passport, UNHCR card whatever. 
Instead just give them a simple card with a date and chop and write their names on the card - to be presented for the second jab. (Their names are fake anyway - most of the UNHCR refugee cards bear false names. I know because I have seen them.)  
Dont worry lah - no foreign factory worker is going to keep coming back for more and more and more free vaccination jabs. No one is that stupid. Just because you are stupid please do not assume that other people are as stupid as you.   
Even if we shut down the entire country for three months, we are NOT going to solve the problem of 3 to 4 million foreigners who live in cramped dormitories, 15 people sharing a terrace house and other such unhygienic living conditions. They will still remain super spreaders. The virus will not go away.
Please vaccinate the factory workers and the foreigners - legal or not legal.
There are two things in this country for which we must build shrines to commemorate them. 
No. 1 is the simple back-hoe tractor. Throughout the 1990s and until now that simple back-tractor has been ubiquitous in every construction and development project in this country. That simple back-hoe tractor can literally move mountains. For those of you who live in Cheras you will know Plaza Phoenix. That plot of land used to be a hill. One single tractor levelled the entire hill to build that Plaza. I know because I financed that project.  
No. 2 are the foreign workers.  Our local duds are not interested in working in the factories. The foreign workers have taken up the slack and they have contributed so much to our GDP.  If there were no Indonesian, Bangladeshi and Indian workers we may be eating grass by now.  Our plantations, our construction sites and our factories would collapse without the foreign workers. We really need to show some appreciation and thanks to the foreign workers. 
But lets just get them vaccinated first.  I hope it is not too complicated to understand or to get done.
Artikel ini adalah pandangan penulis dan tidak semestinya mewakili MMKtT.
By Syed Akbar Ali 

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