Meanwhile, the number of people receiving their first COVID-19 jab increased by 147,779 on Wednesday, taking the total count to 14,099,754, as per a report released by the task force.
The first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine has so far been administered to 34.94 percent of the 40,349,049 recipients targeted under the first and second phases of the vaccination program, the task force said.
The number of fully vaccinated recipients represents 23.21 percent of the targeted recipients.
The government is seeking to vaccinate 181.5 million citizens, or 70 percent of the population, to create herd immunity against the virus.
It has also made efforts to expand the vaccination capacity to speed up the nationwide immunization program.
In the meantime, State-owned Enterprises (SOE) Minister Erick Thohir has said that his ministry has no plans to commercialize COVID-19 vaccines.
"Regarding prices, from the beginning, we in the SOE Ministry have been very open. We are not thinking about commercializing the COVID-19 vaccines," Thohir said at a press conference here on Wednesday.
In reality, the government pays for the vaccines — they are not free of charge, he added.
Indonesia has so far secured 54 million vaccine doses free of cost through the World Health Organization (WHO) and spent nearly Rp77 trillion on procuring additional vaccine doses to cater to the large population of the country, which are being distributed free of charge.
(INE)
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Translator: Zubi Mahrofi/Suharto
Editor: Fardah Assegaf
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