IDNEWSNOW.COM, Jakarta – Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan, Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs and Investment, said COVID-19 would continue to exist and that the pandemic will turn into an endemic. He predicted that the daily confirmed cases will be in a single digit of around 3,000 to 7,000 given that no vaccine is 100 percent effective thus far.
The Java-Bali PPKM coordinator outlined three strategies that will play the main keys to the transition from pandemic to endemic. First, intensifying and increasing vaccination coverage. Second, testing-tracing-treatment. Third, public adherence to health protocols.
The government’s COVID-19 surveillance app PeduliLindungi, he added, will be the main integrator of the three strategies in a bid to curb virus transmission once restrictions are relaxed.
“Indonesia ranks six in the world on the total number of people who have been vaccinated and the number of injections. Two million doses are targeted to be administered per day, and vaccination coverage in agglomeration regions and big cities is targeted to reach 70 percent in September. We don’t lack vaccines,” said Luhut in a written statement on Friday, September 10.
The success in handling the pandemic, he went on, will thus drive rapid economic recovery. “Indonesia’s competitiveness, including in terms of investment, depends on our success in containing the pandemic. The sooner we succeed in controlling the pandemic, Indonesia’s investment will be more competitive and attractive,” he remarked.
Luhut also claimed the government’s policy on public mobility restrictions (PPKM) had lowered the Composite Index by more than 20 percent in the Java-Bali Province. Thus, the COVID-19 daily numbers and active cases could be suppressed quickly and significantly. “Today, Indonesia’s confirmed cases have dropped 88.1 percent from the peak on July 15,” he said.
Read: Indonesia Reports 5,990 New Covid-19 Cases, 10,650 Recoveries on September 9
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