Coordinating Minister Airlangga: Indonesia Becomes One Of The Best Countries In Handling COVID-19

Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs, Airlangga Hartarto. (Photo: Doc. Coordinating Ministry for the Economy)

JAKARTA - Indonesia's strategy for handling COVD-19 which emphasizes handling upstream and downstream has proven to be producing good results. This is reflected in the value of the Reproduction Number (Rt) of 0.60. This figure is relatively lower than the global Rt and other countries.

"If we compare it with other countries, for example Singapore the figure is still 1.44, the UK is 0.97, the world is 0.92, America is 0.9, India is 0.86, the Philippines is 0.85, Malaysia is 0.81. So Indonesia is one of the best in handling COVID-19," said Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs Airlangga Hartarto, who also serves as Chairman of KPC-PEN, in his statement, Thursday, October 7.

This was conveyed by Coordinating Minister Airlangga in his speech with the theme "Strategies for Accelerating Economic Growth to Support National Development Post the COVID-19 Pandemic" at the Sespimti Polri School Seminar and Sespimmen Polri FY 2021 which took place virtually, Wednesday 6 October.

Furthermore, in his presentation, Coordinating Minister Airlangga said, this economic growth was inversely proportional to the COVID-19 case. In the second quarter, when COVID-19 cases are below 100,000, economic growth can jump to 7.07 percent.

"However, when the Delta variant enters, cases rise to around 573 thousand, and economic growth is estimated to decline to around 3.5 to 4 percent. Furthermore, in the fourth quarter it is expected to grow around 5 percent, because we see several indicators have improved considerably and cases Covid-19 has become more gentle," said Airlangga.

Indonesia is one of the best countries in handling COVID-19. As of October 3, 2021, active cases in Indonesia have decreased by 94.59 percent from the peak of cases on July 24, 2021, and decreased by 53.81 percent in the last two weeks.

This can happen thanks to the strategy for handling the pandemic on the upstream side, namely prevention through PPKM, increased testing and tracing, and accelerated vaccination.

The World Bank appreciates the speed of vaccination implementation in Indonesia, which has reached more than 100 million doses. This achievement can not be separated from the policy of accelerating vaccination which continues to be carried out by involving the TNI and Polri.

As a result of this collaboration, Indonesia is listed as one of the countries with the best vaccination achievements, where Indonesia is ranked 5th in the world in terms of the number of first dose injections and is ranked 6th in the world in the total number of COVID-19 vaccination injections. Meanwhile, the strategy for handling COVID-19 downstream is the handling of patients with Centralized Isolation (Isoter) which utilizes Flats, Hotels, Hajj Dormitory, and PELNI Ships.

"Several different policies that are not carried out by other countries are Centralized Isolation. Centralized Isolation is between self-isolation at home and in hospitals. We know that our community does not all have houses that can self-isolate, so there is a risk of creating family clusters that cause increasing cases," said Coordinating Minister Airlangga.

However, Coordinating Minister Airlangga reminded the public to remain vigilant, so that all these good achievements can be maintained in the context of the transition from pandemic to endemic. Meanwhile, the government has prepared a roadmap towards the new normal era, the main requirements of which are the achievement of herd immunity, intensification of vaccination up to 2.5 million doses/day, and less than 5 thousand new cases.