Jakarta (ANTARA) - The number of Indonesians who have received the third dose of the COVID-19 vaccine or the booster shot reached 63.92 million as of 12 p.m. local time on Thursday, the COVID-19 Handling Task Force reported.

Data received from the task force in Jakarta showed that the number of people who have received the third dose increased by 96,597 to reach 63,920,103, or 27.24 percent of the 234,666,020 targeted recipients, on Thursday.

Meanwhile, the number of people who have received two doses of the COVID-19 vaccine increased by 30,561 to reach 171,286,846, accounting for 72.99 percent of the total targeted recipients.

Further, the number of recipients of the first dose increased by 26,292, bringing the total number to 204,667,222, or 87.22 percent of the total target.

For the fourth vaccination, which is currently targeting health workers, the number of recipients increased by 4,237 to reach 632,925.

Earlier, an epidemiologist from Griffith University Australia, Dicky Budiman, had said that vaccination is one of the capitals for Indonesia, including the world, to reach the end of the pandemic.

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"The end of the pandemic is increasingly optimistic that we will achieve it, especially when there is a three-dose vaccination capital," Budiman said.

Therefore, he added, Indonesia must continue to strive to increase the coverage of the three-dose vaccination to increase people’s immunity.

According to him, the government must vaccinate 90 percent of the population against COVID-19 so that group immunity is formed in order to provide indirect protection to those who are not immune to the infectious disease.

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Translator: Zubi M, Azis Kurmala
Editor: Rahmad Nasution
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