The soldiers approached the villagers, shared face masks, and spoke to them about the importance of unifying efforts to battle the COVID-19 pandemic, a commanding officer noted in a statement that ANTARA quoted here on Monday.
The villagers enthusiastically joined the campaign, Commanding officer of the 315/Garuda Infantry Battalion's task force for safeguarding vulnerable areas in Tsinga Sub-district, Second Lieutenant Heru Prasetyo, remarked.
The villagers willingly received the free face masks from the soldiers since before this public awareness campaign, they were required to comply with the mask-wearing rule, but several of them did not have masks.
During the campaign, the participating soldiers urged the villagers to stay at home if they had nothing necessary to do outdoors to help break the chain of the novel coronavirus disease, he noted.
The army personnel reminded the villagers of the importance of wearing masks, washing hands, maintaining physical distancing, avoiding crowds, and reducing mobility for halting the spread of COVID-19, he added.
The COVID-19 pandemic initially struck the Chinese city of Wuhan in 2019 and subsequently spread across the globe, including to countries in the Asia-Pacific region.
The Indonesian government announced the country'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 public activity restrictions.
As part of the 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.
In the midst of the government's ongoing vaccination drives, over the past few weeks, Indonesia has been hit by the second wave of new COVID-19 cases.
The country witnessed a record increase in daily COVID-19 cases on July 3, with 27,913 new infections reported across the country, thereby taking the total tally to 2,256,851.
The COVID-19 Response Task Force noted that with 493 people dying of COVID-19, the death toll had reached 60,027. The number of deaths showed a decline on Saturday as compared to 539 recorded on July 2.
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Translator: Muhsidin, Rahmad Nasution
Editor: Sri Haryati
Copyright © ANTARA 2021
