"To date, the vaccination coverage has reached 64.5 percent," Makassar Mayor Moh Ramdhan Pomanto stated here Wednesday.
With that achievement, Pomanto noted that the city government will continue to expedite vaccinations in order to achieve herd immunity by inoculating 80 percent of Makassar's population against COVID-19.
According to the Makassar City Health Office's data,the coverage for the first dose vaccination had surpassed 64 percent out of the total targeted 1,102,303 people. Meanwhile, the second-dose vaccination has reached 42.02 percent.
"We are targeting herd immunity to be achieved by the end of October," Nursaidah Sirajuddin, an official from the Makassar City Health Office, remarked.
Currently, the city's vaccination teams are focusing on administering vaccinations to adolescents in the age bracket of 13 to 19 years that will partake in face-to-face learning in schools following the public activity restrictions (PPKM) level being downgraded to level 2 in Makassar.
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Despite the curbs being eased, Sirajuddin emphasized that the residents should continue to comply with health protocols and remain alert to threats arising from new COVID-19 variants.
Earlier, Administrative and Bureaucratic Reform Minister (Menpan RB) Tjahjo Kumolo had lauded the vaccination achievement in Makassar while observing vaccinations in the city.
The minister encouraged the South Sulawesi provincial government to expedite vaccinations by providing vaccination cars and outlets, vaccinations in the community units, and cooperating with community organizations and political parties to accelerate inoculation.
"Vaccination is the key since South Sulawesi, especially Makassar, is a trading hub, a gathering place of people from eastern Indonesia. Hence, the people must be healthy and the State Apparatus (ASN) must be healthy to serve the community," he remarked.
In a bid to boost immunity against COVID-19, the Indonesian government has launched a nationwide vaccination program on January 13, 2021. According to data from the Health Ministry, as of October 6, 2021, as many as 95,781,773 citizens had received their first COVID-19 vaccine dose, while 54,441,979 Indonesians have been fully vaccinated.
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Translator: M Darwin, Raka Adji
Editor: Rahmad Nasution
Copyright © ANTARA 2021
