Jakarta (ANTARA) - Indonesia’s COVID-19 situation has continued to improve, with only three provinces outside Java and Bali recording more than one thousand active COVID-19 cases, Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs, Airlangga Hartarto, has informed.

"Those three provinces are Papua, Lampung, and West Sumatra," he said at a press conference after attending a limited meeting on the evaluation of public activity restrictions (PPKM), which was led by President Joko Widodo at the Presidential Palace, here on Monday.

The number of active cases in Papua is still pegged at 12 thousand, Lampung at 7,400, and West Sumatra at 2,500, he expounded.

Hartarto, who is also chairman of the Committee for COVID-19 Handling and National Economic Recovery (KPC-PEN), noted that as of Sunday (April 17, 2022), Indonesia's active COVID-19 case count stood at 60,475 nationally, a decline of around 90 percent compared to April 2021.

Meanwhile, the number of daily confirmed cases was pegged at 602, and the hospital occupancy rate was recorded at 4 percent, he added.

Despite the improvement in the number of daily confirmed cases and active cases, the minister urged people to get the first, second, and booster doses of the COVID-19 vaccine.

According to Hartarto, there are only two provinces where first dose vaccination coverage has not reached 70 percent: Papua and West Papua.

Meanwhile, provinces where the second dose vaccination coverage is still below 70 percent are West Kalimantan, East Nusa Tenggara, Gorontalo, West Sulawesi, South Sulawesi, Southeast Sulawesi, Central Sulawesi, North Sulawesi, Maluku, North Maluku, Papua, and West Papua, he said.

The first case of COVID-19 was confirmed in Indonesia in March 2020. According to data from the COVID-19 Handling Task Force, as of April 18, Indonesia has recorded a total of 6,040,432 COVID-19 cases, 5,833,560 recoveries, and 155,903 deaths.

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Translator: Gilang Galiartha, Raka Adji
Editor: Suharto
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