We had seven new positive cases yesterday as a result of our contact tracing effortsWamena, Papua (ANTARA) - The Jayawijaya COVID-19 task force announced on Thursday that it has tracked seven new positive cases connected to a coronavirus outbreak at a church in Wamena, the capital of Jayawijaya district, Papua province.
The new patients were infected by a member of the church's congregation, said task force chief and Jayawijaya district head, John Richard Banua.
"We had seven new positive cases yesterday as a result of our contact tracing efforts," he said, adding that 29 residents remain hospitalized after contracting the virus.
As of Thursday, the district administration had not decided on whether to temporarily close the Wamena airport or not, as planned by the Papua provincial government, to curb the spread of COVID-19.
"If the provincial government instructs us to conduct a lockdown, we are going to adapt to the policy," Banua said.
The COVID-19 pandemic initially struck the Chinese city of Wuhan in 2019 and thereafter spread across the world, including to nations in the Asia-Pacific region.
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The Indonesian government announced the nation's first confirmed cases on March 2, 2020.
Since then, the central and regional governments have striven incessantly to flatten the nation’s coronavirus curve by applying healthcare protocols and social restrictions.
As part of efforts to win the fight against COVID-19, the Indonesian government has also been conducting a nationwide vaccination program to contain infections since January 13, 2021.
Indonesia recently received 10 million doses of bulk vaccines from China’s Sinovac.
As of June 20, 2021, Indonesia has received 104,728,400 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, comprising 94.5 million Sinovac vaccines, 8.228 million AstraZeneca vaccines, and 2 million Sinopharm vaccines.
The Indonesian Health Ministry has estimated that vaccinating the 181.5 million targeted recipients of the nationwide immunization program would take around 15 months.
Apart from the vaccination program, the government had also banned homebound travel, or ‘mudik’, ahead of this year's Eid al-Fitr holiday season to break the chain of the spread of COVID-19, which has dampened the purchasing power of families across Indonesia.
The government had banned homebound travel last year, too. (INE)
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Translator: MF Yewun, Rahmad Nasution
Editor: Fardah Assegaf
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