COVID-19 Cases Drop Drastically, Minister Of Health: Many People Already Have Immunity

JAKARTA - Minister of Health, Budi Gunadi Sadikin, said that the community's immunity to fight COVID-19 has made positive cases in the country drop drastically.

According to him, this immunity is caused by two factors, namely the number of people who have previously been exposed to COVID-19 and then recovered and from injecting vaccines.

"Cases in Indonesia have dropped very drastically. One of the scientific explanations is because many Indonesians already have immunity, either artificially through vaccines or naturally because they have recovered from illness", said Minister Budi in a press conference broadcast on the Presidential Secretariat's YouTube, Monday, October 11th.

Even so, the government will continue to carry out surveillance surveys by taking random samples. This will be done in collaboration with the Ministry of Home Affairs in its implementation.

The plan is that there will be 21,880 samples to be taken from 34 provinces in 100 regencies/cities. This test will be carried out every six months.

"Later, the results of this survey are expected to be completed in mid-December, so that it can provide a complete picture of the immune or antibody conditions of all of our people", said the Minister of Health.

In addition, from this test, it is hoped that the condition of the community against the spread of COVID-19 can be read to formulate government policies in overcoming the pandemic.

"We also conducted this survey in collaboration with the University of Indonesia, Faculty of Public Health and WHO so that the results can later be shared in the world", said the former Deputy Minister of SOEs.

The Minister of Health said the results of this surveillance test could be shared with the world community to show that Indonesia is ready to handle the COVID-19 pandemic.

"Shows Indonesia's readiness in anticipating the handling of the pandemic and its transition to endemic", he concluded.