"No," he said when asked about it after he attended the opening of the “National Coordination Meeting on COVID-19 Handling and National Economic Recovery (PC PEN)” here on Thursday.
He informed that the government will reduce its interventions in people's activities following the revocation of the public activity restrictions (PPKM) policy in December 2022.
Sadikin emphasized that the government is still providing the second booster dose free of charge.
According to him, Indonesia currently has around 10 million COVID-19 vaccine doses, which include 5 million vaccine doses donated from abroad.
The minister appealed to the community to get the second booster, especially to increase vigilance against the finding of a Kraken variant case in the country.
The Kraken patient is a traveler from Poland who was detected with the infection in Balikpapan, East Kalimantan, Sadikin informed.
Even though he said he believes that Indonesia's community immunity is relatively good, he advised older adults and people with comorbidities to get the second booster.
He further said that the Indonesian government is continuing to work with the World Health Organization (WHO) regarding the pandemic-to-endemic transition.
The Ministry of Health has issued a circular on the provision of the second booster to the general public aged over 18 from January 24, 2023. The circular was signed by the ministry's director general of disease prevention and control Maxi Rein Rondonuwu on January 20.
The circular stated that the second booster will be provided at an interval of six months from the first booster.
According to data provided by the COVID-19 Handling Task Force, as of January 25, as many as 204,205,395 Indonesians have received the first vaccine dose, 175,024,949 have been administered the second dose, 69,236,853 have taken the third dose or first booster, and 1,238,500 people have received the second booster.
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Translator: Gilang Galiartha, Raka Adji
Editor: Azis Kurmala
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