Bad News, COVID-19 Vaccination Target For Elderly Misses Target, Only 43 Percent

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JAKARTA - COVID-19 vaccination for the elderly has only reached 43 percent of the target of 21.5 million elderly who are being targeted.

"This is inversely proportional to all targets. If all targets are only 40 percent of the target that has not been vaccinated," said the Health Ministry's COVID-19 Vaccination Spokesperson Siti Nadia Tarmizi at the Merdeka Barat Forum which was monitored in Jakarta, Thursday, November 11.

He said only 9.3 million elderly had received the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. In fact, patients over the age of 59 have the potential to suffer from COVID-19 at a more severe level to death.

"So we hope that the vaccination for the elderly is at least the first dose until the end of December 2021," said Nadia.

Meanwhile, only DKI Jakarta, Bali, Yogyakarta, and Riau Islands Provinces have given the first dose of COVID-19 vaccine to 50 percent of the elderly in the area.

In other areas, according to Nadia, elderly vaccination has only reached 30 percent of the target, there are even areas that are less than that.

"In Aceh, West Sumatra and Papua, the vaccination rate for the elderly is very low, not yet 20 percent," he said.

According to Nadia, the low vaccination rate for the elderly is caused, among other things, by the disinformation received by the elderly so that they are reluctant to be vaccinated.

“Information such as elderly people with many comorbidities should not get the vaccine because they will still experience side effects. This makes the elderly hesitate to be vaccinated,” he said.

Even though the vaccination stock for the elderly is guaranteed to be safe by the government because this group is a priority for vaccine recipients. Vaccines for the elderly have also been implemented since March 2021 when younger citizens have not yet had access to vaccinations.

"Since March 2021, we have carried out several innovations, including for example if we take two elderly people, we can get vaccinations. At that time, vaccination for non-elderly, non-health workers, and non-public workers had not yet started," he said.

Meanwhile, Internal Medicine Specialist Dirga Sakti Rambo said the elderly needed to be convinced by setting an example from their own friends that the COVID-19 vaccine was not dangerous, including for the elderly with chronic diseases.

“Any disease, including chronic diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, and cancer, can all be vaccinated as long as the disease is under control. This means that patients regularly go to the doctor, there are no significant complaints, and the doctor issues a letter of recommendation," he said.