The Covid vaccination for teens below the age of 18 have begun in Malaysia. Starting from 23 September 2021, the teens can take the vaccination at the specific 156 PPV centers. There were a lot of confusion when the government released the news about this vaccination exercise because it was mentioned that children can walk into the PPV to get the jab.
So, eager parents started to make a beeline to the centers to get their children vaccinated. However, they were turned away because apparently, only children who are sitting for their IGCSE or SPM this year and those in higher learning institutions can walk in while being accompanied by a parent or guardian for consent. Other children will have to get the appointments for their vaccination from their respective schools and are not allowed to walk-in to any integrated or public PPV.
While many of my friends’ kids were starting to get their vaccination appointments early this week, there was no news from missy’s school. So on Friday afternoon, I was whatsapping the school’s admin and asked them about this. I was told that they were working closely with the Ministry of Health and they were not sure why they have not received anything yet.
Then at 5.30pm, I received a whatsapp broadcast message from the school that students who have registered to take the vaccination with the school and are age between 17 and 16 will have to go to the Civic Center the next day at 10am for their vaccination. Yes, THE NEXT DAY. Talk about last minute. Anyway, we are so happy that we finally got the appointment. Right after receiving the message, it was a mad dash as I have to print out the consent form and filled it up and then arrange how to get to the MBPJ Civic Center in PJ New Town as hubs was busy.
So the next morning, Missy and I arrived at the Civic Center at 9am although her appointment was at 10am. There was already a long line outside the gate and it was getting longer. Luckily missy’s friend who went inside called her and told her that we can actually walk into the center and wait because this is under the school vaccination programme.
We were directed to this tent and stood here waiting for the 9am appointments to go in first. Once it was our turn, we were asked to move to another tent which has chairs for us to sit.
That is us sitting under the hot sun. The tent was not long enough to cover everyone so half of us were sitting with no roof over our heads. Luckily it was still morning at around 10+ so the sun was not that hot that day.
I decided to take a photo of the lovely sky.
After sitting there for about 15 minutes, we were asked to move up a few times and it was a relieved because we get to go under the tent and there were fans to cool down. Then we were given the consent forms to fill in. As we have already printed out our own, we were told to hold on to the new forms as they come with a number. This is the number that is used to call the kids when they go into the hall so that the staff can check their IC Number and the MySejahtera app.
Parents are asked to leave the kids as soon as they enter the hall for verification because they want to prevent overcrowding. The parents are ushered into the theatre hall to wait for the children. When the children come into the theatre hall, the parent will then walk with them to the stage where the medical officers will ask about the health of the children and then sign the consent form. Then after the kids will have to go into the vaccination center to get their jab while the parents wait at the exit. This part was pretty fast and Ashley came out in less than 30 minutes (including 15 minutes of observation after she took her jab).
She recorded a video of the vaccination process 🙂
This is the photobooth area at the exit.
The whole process took about 2 and half hours because we were there an hour earlier. So, it is best to be there maybe 15 to 30 minutes before the appointment time. We are happy that missy got her first dose. She was so looking forward to getting her vaccination yesterday as she can see her friends. Her 2nd dose will be in 3 weeks’ time.
Don’t take my snack, Sheldon
