COVID-19 Cases Are Still High, The Government Must Be Serious About Implementing 3 T And Vaccination
JAKARTA - House of Representatives Commission IX member Intan Fauzi reminded that the COVID-19 pandemic is a collective homework. The government is asked to be serious in achieving the target of herd immunity (community immunity).
More than a year and a half of the COVID-19 pandemic in the country, Intan believes that the community can implement the 5 M (washing hands, wearing masks, maintaining distance, avoiding crowds, limiting mobility). However, according to him, the government must also be consistent with implementing the 3 Ts.
"We hope that the government will also continue to improve test tracing and treatment (3T) although alhamdulillah recently the COVID-19 case has started to slow down, we hope that with an increase of 3T people will obey the 5M and vaccinations we can immediately carry out normal activities and this pandemic can end," said Intan in a virtual discussion entitled "Improving the Body's Immune in the Pandemic Period," Wednesday, August 4.
In order to accelerate here immunity, the Chairperson of the Women's National Mandate (PUAN) explained that her party had carried out free vaccinations as a collaboration with the government in various regions which were held at the PAN DPP offices and also PAN DPWs throughout Indonesia.
"We are pushing for herd immunity, which we know is currently around 10 percent nationally for the second dose of vaccination. We hope that herd immunity will be over because it has been more than 1.5 years since the pandemic was discovered in Indonesia," said Intan.
Meanwhile, Spokesperson for the COVID-19 Vaccination of the Ministry of Health, Siti Nadia Tarmizi, explained the importance of vaccination for handling the COVID-19 pandemic. He said, if they have been vaccinated, humans have a defense system immune system to fight the COVID-19 virus when the virus enters the human body.
"Because the virus needs to enter the cells of the human body for it to replicate and reproduce. Now, it can be fought quickly, neutralized because it already knows the enemy so that he will win the war against the COVID-19 virus," explained Nadia.
"So, there are two benefits for someone who has been vaccinated. The first is for himself, it provides protection. And the second is to limit transmission to others. The ultimate goal is herd immunity," added the Director of P2ML of the Ministry of Health.
Meanwhile, the Government Spokesperson for Handling COVID-19 and Ambassador for New Habit Adaptation Reisa Broto Asmoro added that viruses are easy to mutate. When a virus mutates, new variants can be formed. This is also what happened to Sars Cov-2, which now has thousands of mutations.
"When a variant is formed that is indeed disturbing, the transmission is greater, the treatment activity decreases, we call it a variant of concern," explained Reisa.
Nevertheless, the good news is that Reisa emphasized that new variants of COVID-19 can still be detected through testing, and can also be prevented through vaccination.
"How to deal with it, prevent transmission. Respond with current drugs, prevent it with health protocols (double masks), the most important thing is that this can be prevented with vaccines," explained Reisa.