Jakarta (ANTARA) - The Indonesian Medical Association (IDI) has advised the government to reimpose the COVID-19 PCR test requirement for travelers on account of the increasing number of infections in Indonesia.

"The negative PCR (test result) requirement for travelers should be reimplemented considering that the price of tests is getting cheaper,” a representative from the IDI's COVID-19 task force, Erlina Burhan, said here on Tuesday.

The IDI also asked the Ministry of Health to review the policy lifting the mask mandate in open spaces. Burhan also urged the government to educate people massively on COVID-19 prevention.

"Invite people to wear masks (in open spaces) again because the cases are spiking," she said.

She pointed out that in early February this year, Indonesia's daily COVID-19 case count was around 200, and the number has increased to above 1,000 cases per day now.

The IDI also asked the government to reactivate and increase contact-tracing efforts and appealed to stakeholders, such as regional governments, to improve booster vaccination coverage.

On Tuesday, the COVID-19 Handling Task Force reported that Indonesia had recorded 1,678 fresh COVID-19 cases, taking the total count since the first case was confirmed in March 2020 to 6,070,933.

The regions that recorded the most new cases were Jakarta, with 953 cases; West Java, 291 cases; and Banten, 213 cases.

Further, the task force data also showed that as many as 677 patients were declared recovered on Tuesday, taking the total tally to 5,904,138.

Meanwhile, the death toll increased by 5 to touch 156,700.

The task force reported that, as of Tuesday, the number of active COVID-19 cases in Indonesia reached 10,095, up 996 compared to the previous day.



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Translator: Lifia Mawaddah, Raka Adji
Editor: Suharto
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