JAKARTA - Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs and Investment (Menko Marves) Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan asked the government to allocate 8 percent of village funds to be used to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic, especially the delta variant.
Luhut explained that the village funds would later be used to buy necessities for early detection of COVID-19 sufferers. According to him, this step must be taken immediately in order to reduce the death rate for people who are self-isolating.
Furthermore, said Luhut, this step is also one of the government's interventions to reduce the risk of death of COVID-19 patients.
"Regarding the high mortality rate, the government intervened, for example, we formed a task force to pick up those at home so they could be isolated in a centralized manner," he said in a virtual press conference, Monday, August 2.
Not only that, said Luhut, other efforts were also made to reduce the death rate, namely by ensuring adequate supply of drugs and oxygen. According to him, based on monitoring carried out, most of the COVID-19 patients who died were caused by oxygen saturation below 90.
Luhut also asked for the participation of the TNI-Polri and local governments to actively monitor the testing and tracing process. That way, he hopes that the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic will be able to run quickly.
"The government encourages centralized isolation and encourages the TNI, Polri and Regional Government to be actively involved in tracking, testing and tracing as well as picking up people who are self-isolating so that things don't happen," he said.
Furthermore, Luhut explained that the capacity of hospitals in Java and Bali has also been increased. A total of 49,000 beds are ready to be used to treat COVID-19 positive patients so as not to self-isolate at home.
"Family clusters are reduced and we avoid people dying because oxygen saturation drops and just being taken to the hospital, so there is the potential for death due to late treatment. The delta variant is very fast causing a decrease in oxygen saturation," he explained.
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