Gov’t Rolls Out Vaccination Drive Phase III

By Office of Assistant to Deputy Cabinet Secretary for State Documents & Translation     Date 24 Mei 2021
Category: News
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Deputy Health Minister Dante Saksono Harbuwono delivers a press statement after attending a Limited Meeting on Handling of the COVID-19 Pandemic led by President Jokowi, Monday (24/5), in Jakarta. (Photo by: PR of Cabinet Secretariat / Rahmat)

The Government has begun rolling out the third phase of national vaccination drive as part of an effort to protect the public from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Deputy Minister of Health Dante Saksono Harbuwono said the third phase aims to vaccinate around 181.5 million people in order to achieve herd immunity.

“We are starting the third phase of vaccination for the general public in vulnerable areas,” said Dante in a press statement after attending a Limited Meeting on Handling of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Monday (24/5) in Jakarta.

This third phase of vaccination drive, Dante continued, is also part of an effort to speed up the vaccination rate with a target of 1 million doses per day.

“We will improve the vaccinations after Eid al-Fitr. We have reached 500 thousand inoculations per day, hopefully we can reach 1 million inoculations per day in the near future with multiple efforts,” he said.

He went on to say that other efforts that have been initiated are simplifying the flow of vaccination from four to two steps only. In addition, there is also a Gotong Royong (mutual cooperation) vaccination drive rolled out some time ago, Dante added.

Dante also pointed out about the increase in cases following the Eid al-Fitr holiday caused by high people’s mobility and the presence of Corona virus mutations.

“We can see that in the last four days, the increase in new cases has reached over five thousand. This shows that the effect of public mobilization during Eid holiday has begun to appear this week. So, the Government predicts that the increase will continue to occur until mid-June,” he said.

Regarding virus mutations, Dante unveiled that Ministry of Health had identified the existence of a new variant of the Corona virus originating from India, Africa and the United Kingdom.

To date, 54 cases have been identified, of which 35 cases are imported from migrants or outside Indonesia, while other 19 cases originated from domestic transmission. “So there is already an internal spread of the new variant,” he said.

The Deputy Minister also asked the public to remain disciplined in implementing health protocols to deal with the potential increase in COVID-19 cases.

“The combination of external factors in the form of mobilization and endogenous factors in the form of virus mutations will cause the increased case in the future. We still have to follow health protocols,” he said.

Through various efforts to deal with the pandemic, such as vaccination drives and maintaining health protocols, as well as efforts to restore the national economy, Dante expressed optimism that the pandemic can be handled properly.

“So [with] various kinds of combinations, we are optimistic that we can handle this pandemic well,” he said. (FID/UN) (EST/MUR)

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