Indonesia Encourages Booster Vaccination as Requirement for Organizing Crowds Activities

Jakarta, MINA – In particular, the Indonesian government encourages booster vaccination as a requirement for organizing activities that involve crowds.

“In principle, for various activities, whether it be a sports venue or another venue or music or art that involves many members of the community, it is hoped that the third dose can be facilitated. So that for activities that attract or create crowds, the third vaccination will continue to be encouraged,” said Coordinating Minister for Economic Affair Airlangga Hartarto after attending a Limited Meeting chaired by Indonesian President Joko Widodo at the Presidential Office, Jakarta on Monday (June 13)..

Currently, an increase in COVID-19 cases is occurring in various countries, triggered by the discovery of new subvariants of Omicron BA.4 and BA.5. Facing the potential spike in cases, the government continues to accelerate the rate of vaccination, especially booster dose vaccination, which is still low.

“The President’s directive is to increase the number of third-dose vaccines,” said the Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs who is also the coordinator of PPKM Outside Java-Bali.

The Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs said that there were still two provinces whose first dose was still below 70 percent, namely West Papua and Papua. As for the second dose of vaccination, there are ten provinces with achievements below 70 percent.

“Provinces that are still relatively low below 50 percent are Maluku, West Papua and Papua,” he said.

Airlangga conveyed, although there was an increase in cases of the pandemic condition in Indonesia as a whole it was still in a controlled stage.

“Our cases are around 574 (cases) daily, if we look at Australia it could be 16,000 (cases), India 8,500 (cases), Singapore 3,100 (cases), Thailand 2,400 (cases), even Malaysia 1,700 (cases),” he said.

Indonesia’s effective case reproduction rate (Rt) is also relatively stable below 1, the recovery rate reaches 97.34 percent, while the case fatality rate is 2.58 percent.

“We see that the transmission of cases is mostly local, of which cases from overseas travel are around 25 cases,” said Airlangga.

The Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs added that the bed occupancy rate in hospitals or BOR (bed occupancy rate), especially outside Java-Bali is still relatively low.

“Outside Java-Bali, the COVID-19 BOR is relatively low and the highest is only in North Kalimantan and Central Kalimantan,” he concluded. (T/RE1)

Mi’raj News Agency (MINA)