"The PPKM will be lifted from this day. Later, the Home Affairs Ministry will issue an Instruction from the Home Affairs Minister, and the emergency (health) status will not be removed because the pandemic has not completely ended," the president noted in a press statement at the Merdeka Palace here on Friday.
The head of state remarked that the COVID-19 pandemic status was not an issue that could be set on a country-to-country basis and since it is a global problem, the World Health Organization's Public Health Emergency of International Concern was the one that determined the status.
The government's decision was taken partly based on the fact that Indonesia was currently one of the four G20 countries that did not see a surge in pandemic in 10-11 consecutive months, he explained.
"We remember that at the peak (of the spread of the variant) of Delta, we were at 56 thousand (daily cases) in July 2021, and in February 2022 again we experience the peak of the trend because Omicron is at 64 thousand daily cases. I feel like I need to inform of such data," the head of state noted.
Currently, the situation is getting under control, as the count of daily cases as of December 29, 2022 was only 685, the death rate was at 2.39 percent, bed occupancy rate at 4.79 percent, and the daily ICU figure stood at 297.
"Then, this is important, the lift of community activity restrictions is based on the high coverage of population immunity. Hence, from a sero survey, if we look at the figure in December 2021, it was 87.8 percent, and in July 2022, it was 98.5 percent. This means that our immunity on a public scale is at a very high rate, and the number of vaccinations to date is 448,525,478 doses. This is not a small figure," Jokowi concluded.
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Translator: Rangga Pandu A J, Mecca Yumna
Editor: Rahmad Nasution
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