Coordinating Minister For Human Development And Culture: COVID-19 Task Force Automatically Disbands After Pandemic Status Is Revoked

UNSPLASH ILLUSTRATION

Coordinating Minister for Human Development and Culture (Menko PMK), Muhadjir Effendy emphasized that the Task Force for Handling COVID-19 automatically disbanded in line with the revocation of the pandemic status by President Joko Widodo.

"It has been disbanded automatically. Since being declared by the President, everything has disbanded," said Muhadjir as quoted by ANTARA, Thursday, June 22.

Muhadjir said the revocation of the pandemic status to endemic marked that matters relating to the handling of the pandemic had been completed. This also applies to budgeting in various sectors/fields.

When the COVID-19 pandemic took place, he said, a number of ministries/agencies were refocusing on the budget for handling COVID-19. But now, the budget has returned to normal.

"It's finished, including budgeting. So, back to normal budgeting. Because yesterday there may be refocusing to deal with COVID-19 with all its impacts, including the economy," he said.

Likewise with the Committee for Handling COVID-19 and National Economic Recovery (KPCPEN) which was also disbanded. The budget given to KPCPEN in an effort to recover the economy is returned to the State Budget.

"There is no shift (budget), the budget is back to the state budget," he said.

President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) has officially revoked the status of the COVID-19 pandemic and Indonesia is starting to enter the COVID-19 endemic period.

"After more than three years of fighting together against the COVID-19 pandemic, since today, Wednesday, June 21, 2023, the government has decided to revoke the status of the pandemic and we are starting to enter an endemic period," said President Jokowi.

The decision, said President Jokowi, was taken by the government by considering the number of daily confirmed cases of COVID-19 which was close to nil.

President Jokowi said the survey report showed that 99 percent of Indonesians already have COVID-19 antibodies. The UN Agency for World Health (WHO), said President Jokowi, has also revoked the public health emergency of international concern status.