Ma'ruf Amin Asks The Public To Be Aware Of COVID-19 During Christmas And New Year's Holidays

JAKARTA - Vice President Ma'ruf Amin asked the public to be aware of the potential spike in COVID-19 transmission cases during the 2021 Christmas and 2022 New Year holidays.

"We must also remain aware of the need to anticipate the need for a fairly long holiday period, in connection with Christmas and the New Year," he said, while chairing a Limited Meeting on the Enforcement of Restrictions on Community Activities (PPKM) through a video conference quoted by Antara, Monday, November 1.

With an anticipatory and alert attitude ahead of the Christmas and New Year holidays, he hopes that there will not be a spike in people's movements in various regions. "We will soon enter a fairly high increase in mobility, even before the Christmas and New Year holidays," he said.

Meanwhile, Minister of Health, Budi Sadikin, said that the implementation of health protocols would be more stringently implemented ahead of the 2021 Christmas and New Year 2022 holidays. This was aimed at maintaining the current state of decreasing Covid-19 transmission cases in various regions, as well as anticipating the potential for a third wave surge.

"This health protocol is important because while Indonesia is currently going down (COVID-19 cases), we want to ensure that we can implement the health protocol as well as possible, so that there will not be another spike, especially in the face of Christmas and New Year," he said.

The Minister of Health said President Joko Widodo had also given strict instructions to ministers, through the Coordinating Minister for Human Development and Culture, Muhadjir Effendy, to ensure there was no spike in COVID-19 cases during the 2021 Christmas and 2022 New Year holidays.

Budi Gunadi will also strongly support the president's and Effendy's instructions regarding the implementation of various policies during the year-end holiday period.

"We will also desperately defend this, because there will be many big international events next year," he said.