This has been made possible through the assistance of all stakeholders at the national level and several countries that have donated vaccines, medicines, oxygen, and other medical equipment to aid Indonesia's COVID-handling efforts.
Triggered by the Delta variant, the drastic COVID-19 spike overwhelmed the nation, with daily cases hitting a record 56,757 on July 15, 2021. The highest daily deaths were recorded at 2,069 on July 27, 2021.
Following the implementation of strict restrictions on people’s movement since July 3, 2021 and an accelerated vaccination program, the country managed to bring down daily cases to 7,201 on September 7, 2021, bringing the total COVID-19 tally to 4,140,634. Meanwhile, the daily deaths stood at 683, taking the total toll to 137,156.
The Health Ministry highlighted the positive trend in developments pertaining to efforts to overcome the COVID-19 pandemic in the country, as evidenced by a decline in the case count.
The number of confirmed cases have declined up to 25 percent, the mortality rate has gone down by 37 percent, and the positivity rate has decreased by 10.36 percent, while the recovery rate has continued to increase, it said.
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"The key to successful handling of COVID-19 is strongly influenced by several factors, including the vaccination program, which plays a vital and very important role," Vice President Ma’ruf Amin said while reviewing a vaccination program at UI Salemba in Jakarta on September 7, 2021.
Amin appealed to people, who have received the COVID-19 vaccine, to continue to follow strict health protocols. He also asked regional authorities to intensify the 3Ts (testing, tracing, and treatment).
Despite geographical constraints, the government is targeting to vaccinate 208 million people, or 77 percent of the total population, against COVID-19 before the end of this year, said Amin.
He revealed that the government is currently preparing a detailed scenario for handling COVID-19 as an endemic disease, which includes, among other things, continued application of the health protocols and acceleration of the COVID-19 vaccination drive
Besides, the provision of additional doses of COVID-19 vaccine or boosters is one of the strategies undertaken by the government to reduce the spread of the virus and move to the endemic phase, he noted.
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The government has accelerated COVID-19 vaccinations in the past several months in line with increased vaccine supplies and the arrival of more vaccine brands, including those with high efficacy, such as Moderna and Pfizer, in the country, he said.
The country rolled out its nationwide vaccination program on January 13, 2021, mainly using CoronaVac bought from China’s Sinovac, which has established cooperation with state-owned pharmaceutical company Bio Farma to process bulk vaccines.
Later, the country received other COVID-19 vaccine brands such as AstraZeneca, Moderna, Pfizer, and Sinopharm
According to Vice Minister of Health, Dante Saksono Harbuwono, the vaccination program was expedited in August 2021, when Indonesia managed to administer another 50 million doses in just six weeks.
Thus, Indonesia administered 100 million doses as of August 31, 2021, he noted.The national vaccination program's target is to administer up to 2.3 million doses per day on average, starting September 2021, he informed.
Thanks to determined effort, the percentage of positive cases of COVID-19 in Indonesia, or the positivity rate, is close to the World Health Organization's recommendation of below five percent, according to Harbuwono.
"The positivity rate continues to experience a downward trend, and now, it is 6.97 percent, close to the WHO recommendation," he disclosed on September 6, 2021.
Besides, Indonesia has also achieved the COVID-19 vaccination target set by the WHO, Foreign Affairs Minister Retno Marsudi has said.
Globally, the WHO has set a vaccination target of 10 percent of each country’s population by the end of September 2021, then 40 percent by the end of 2021, and 70 percent by the middle of 2022.
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"Currently, at least 140 countries have vaccinated 10 percent of their citizens, including Indonesia," the minister said.
During the period from December 2020 to September 2021, Indonesia has obtained a total of 225.4 million COVID-19 vaccine doses from various manufacturers in 50 deliveries, he informed.
In the meantime, Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs, Airlangga Hartarto, highlighted that Indonesia is currently ranked sixth in the vaccination rate list worldwide.
The minister noted that as of September 5, 2021, some 105.7 million COVID-19 vaccine doses have been administered in the country, comprising 66.78 million doses of the first vaccine and 38.22 million doses of the second vaccine.
Moreover, 713,068 doses of the third vaccine, using Moderna shots donated by the US government, have been given to healthcare workers as boosters. Meanwhile, for the age bracket of 12 to 17 years, 2.77 million first doses and 1.9 million second doses have been administered so far, he informed.
Hartarto assured that the government will continue to administer vaccines, including to the general public, especially to those aged 12 and above, pregnant women, and the elderly.
The acceleration of the vaccination program and strict public activity restriction implementation are expected to push the public into doing activities nearly normally, thereby encouraging economic recovery.
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Editor: Rahmad Nasution
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