Luhut: If We Are Not United And Disciplined, New Variants Of COVID-19 Will Appear Again

Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs and Investment Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan. (Photo: Doc. Kemenko Marves)

JAKARTA - The Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs and Investment as well as the Java-Bali PPKM Coordinator Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan asked all parties to be united to be disciplined and remind each other so that Indonesia does not experience a third wave of increasing cases of COVID-19.

"So, I once again urge everyone to stick together for discipline, remind each other so that we don't get hit again, the third wave," he said at an online press conference, quoted from Antara, Tuesday, September 7.

Moreover, the world is currently facing the threat of a new variant of the corona virus, one of which is the Mu variant.

"Earlier, it was explained that there was a variant of Mu. I also want to remind you, if this continues like this, other variants will arise, we don't know whether it is more powerful, more violent or what," he said.

Luhut, who is also the Deputy Chair of the Committee for the Handling of COVID-19 and the National Economic Recovery (KPC PEN), requested that no parties politicize the COVID-19 pandemic.

"We all have to understand, let's not politicize. We are talking about this, really this is all for the safety of the Indonesian people. The safety of all of us. All must be united, this is our common enemy," he said.

On the same occasion, Deputy Minister of Health Dante Saksono Harbuwono explained that the longer the pandemic lasts and cases develop, the virus will continue to mutate and modify.

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Regarding the Mu variant, Dante revealed that the variant that occurred in Colombia in the laboratory had resistance to the vaccine.

"But that's in a laboratory context, not in an epidemiological context. However, the spread is not as widespread as Delta transmission," he said.

Dante ensures that the Mu variant has not been found in a number of neighboring countries, as well as in the country. The government has carried out genome sequencing of 7 thousand people in Indonesia and until now the Mu variant has not been detected.

"Hopefully this Mu variant will be abortive as well as the Lambda variant some time ago in Peru," concluded Dante.