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JAKARTA: Indonesian President ordered authorities to speed up the country’s vaccination campaign as the World Health Organization (WHO) warned on Thursday June 17 of the need to increase social restrictions in the country amid ‘a new wave of COVID-19 infections caused by variants.
“We need an acceleration of the vaccination to achieve community immunity, which we hope can stop the spread of COVID-19,” President Joko Widodo said during a visit to a health center. vaccination just outside the capital Jakarta.
Widodo said he had ordered his ministers and local governments to increase the number of people vaccinated each day to 1 million by next month. He said Indonesia is currently vaccinating half a million people a day.
Soldiers in protective gear spray disinfectant on people entering Gelora Bandung Lautan Api Stadium to receive the Sinovac COVID-19 vaccine during a mass vaccination in Bandung, West Java on June 17, 2021. (Photo: AP / Bukbis Candra)
A woman receives an injection of the Sinovac COVID-19 vaccine during a mass vaccination at a football stadium in Bandung, West Java on June 17, 2021. (Photo: AP / Bukbis Candra)
Indonesia, the world’s fourth most populous country, aims to vaccinate more than 181 million of its 270 million people by March 2022, but authorities have only fully vaccinated 11.8 million people and partially vaccinated 9.6 million more.
National COVID-19 task force spokesperson Wiku Adisasmito said slow progress can be attributed to the limited global vaccine supply, lack of preparedness of the national health system and reluctance to vaccines. The government has so far received 92.2 million doses of the vaccine.
Indonesia reported 12,624 new COVID-19 infections on Thursday, the largest increase since January 30, according to data from the Ministry of Health. Another 277 deaths were added to the number of deaths from the disease.
The increase in cases has been attributed to travel during the Eid al-Fitr holiday last month as well as the arrival of new virus variants, such as the Delta version first found in India.
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In Jakarta, the number of occupied hospital beds soared to 75% this week, from 45% last week, according to government data.
The WHO in its situation report on Thursday noted that the drastic increase in bed occupancy rates in Indonesia is a major concern and requires the implementation of stricter public health and social measures, including social restrictions. in large scale.
“With increased transmission due to worrying variants, urgent action is needed to contain the situation in many provinces,” he said.
A man receives an injection of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine during a vaccination campaign in Bekasi, outside Jakarta, on June 17, 2021. (Photo: AP / Achmad Ibrahim)
A woman receives an injection of the Sinovac COVID-19 vaccine at a football stadium in Bandung, West Java on June 17, 2021. (Photo: AP / Bukbis Candra)
Indonesian health authorities say they have detected the Delta variant in the provinces of Jakarta, Central Java and East Java. They say they have spotted three of the four worrying variants reported by the WHO.
Adisasmito said a peak in coronavirus infections was seen this week in the provinces of Jakarta, Banten, West Java, Central Java, Yogyakarta and East Java. All are located in Java, the most populous of Indonesia’s more than 17,000 islands.
Indonesia has reported more than 1.9 million cases of COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic, with more than 53,700 deaths, the highest toll in Southeast Asia. These numbers are considered an undercoverage due to a lack of widespread testing.
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