Lambda Variant Of COVID-19 Emerges, The Entrance Door To Indonesia Must Be Super Tight

JAKARTA - Most of the circulation of the new variant of the COVID-19 virus in Indonesia comes from abroad. After the Delta variant from India, the B1.1.7 variant from the UK, another Lambda variant appears, which WHO said has been detected in 29 countries.

Responding to the circulation of the new COVID-19 virus, Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives Abdul Muhaimin Iskandar reminded the importance of super tight supervision at every arrival gate for foreigners and Indonesian citizens who come from abroad, both at airports, ports, and border entrances.

"All entrances must be super-tightly guarded. Everyone who enters Indonesia must have their swab results checked and the 14-day quarantine must be optimized", Muhaimin told reporters, Wednesday, June 30.

The chairman of the House of Representatives' COVID-19 Disaster Management Supervisory Team proposed a more optimal tightening especially for foreigners and Indonesian citizens who arrived from countries with a high potential for transmission of the new variant of COVID-19.

"The key is that supervision at every entrance must be tightened. Of course, we all don't want sudden local transmission of new variants from abroad, even though we don't know when it will enter and who will bring it", he said.

Cak Imin, who is also the Head of the PKB Party, urged the Indonesian government to be faster and more agile in detecting new variants of the coronavirus from abroad. Moreover, there are several variants that are said to be more contagious and have the potential to make certain types of vaccines ineffective.

The government, said Muhaimin, must increase the number of laboratories that can perform whole-genome sequencing (WGS) to find out the variants of the COVID-19 virus.

"Currently in Indonesia, there are only 17 laboratories that can detect new virus variants. It's time to add it so that detection is faster", he said.