PETALING JAYA: The estimated 200,000 e-hailing drivers and delivery riders on the road daily should be considered as frontliners and given priority in vaccination even though they are categorised as essential service providers in every Movement Control Order (MCO).
Saying this, Segambut MP Hannah Yeoh asked the authorities to protect these industry players from being infected and infecting others.
“A Grab driver contacted me yesterday expressing his concern about the danger of Covid-19 infection e-hailing drivers and delivery riders are exposed to daily,” she said in a statement today.
“The Ministry of Health should provide guidance and encouragement on ventilation for these e-hailing rides. This is crucial for those transporting thousands of customers to CAC (Covid-19 Assesment Centres) centres across Malaysia. Again, this is not rocket science. Why wasn’t this done earlier?”
The DAP MP said MySejahtera needs to embrace the open data concept by sharing its data with relevant industry players.
“The government assures that personal information will only be used for the purpose of managing and mitigating Covid-19 outbreak,” she said.
“Here is a classic example on why this data should be shared: Currently when a person books a ride, the driver is not provided any information on the customer’s Covid-19 status until the customer hops into the car and scans the QR code (provided the Covid-19 status in MySejahtera is current and reflective of the customer’s health). The potential exposure and chain of infection is simply unimaginable yet can be avoided and must be avoided.”
