Indonesian Doctors Association Calls The Delta Virus Is Malignant, It Can Lower The Effectiveness Of The COVID-19 Vaccine Up To 33 Percent

JAKARTA - The head of the COVID-19 Task Force for the Indonesian Doctors Association (PB IDI) Zubairi Djoerban, revealed the level of ferocity of the Delta variant of the COVID-19 virus that had entered Indonesia.

He admitted that the virus, which also caused a spike in cases in Kudus, Central Java, was indeed more easily transmitted.

Based on a British report, said Zubairi, the Delta variant can reduce the effectiveness of the COVID-19 vaccine by up to 33 percent if it is injected only once.

"Based on British data, if you use any vaccine, if you have been injected once, the immunity against the Delta virus is 33 percent", said Zubairi in his statement, Tuesday, June 15.

Zubairi detailed that if you use the AstraZeneca vaccine, you are only 60 percent immune even though you have had two injections. Meanwhile, the Pfizer vaccine can be immune to up to 80 percent of this Delta variant.

"If you are injected twice with AstraZeneca, you are only 60 percent immune, now if you use Pfizer it's only 80 percent", he said.

The danger, said Zubairi, is that the effectiveness of the COVID-19 vaccine will decrease against this Delta variant.

"So it's really decreased (the effectiveness), it's extraordinary that this Delta variant is malignant, easy to cause illness, and easy to cause hospitals to be full", he said.

Therefore, Zubairi asked all Indonesians to be vigilant so as not to suffer the same fate as India which experienced the COVID-19 tsunami.

"Now we have to be very, very vigilant because we are experiencing the same fate as in India at the beginning, which means it is very dangerous", he explained.

"In India, cases have spiked because of ignorance, the language is complacent which means they don't care, similar to Taiwan, where people there don't think it's possible to get infected because they were locked down at the beginning, so they were ignorant and because of that there were a lot of people", continued Zubairi.

Zubairi also asked the public not to feel confident that they could contract COVID-19 even though they had been vaccinated.

"Well, we are the same. We know that people who have been vaccinated feel that confident cannot be infected, even though they have been vaccinated twice, please stick to health protocols because we can still potentially get infected", he said.