Yogyakarta Intensify COVID-19 Screening, Especially Students And Teachers

UNSPLASH ILLUSTRATION

YOGYAKARTA - The city of Yogyakarta remains in PPKM (Community Activity Restrictions) Level 2 in the extension of the PPKM which is valid from November 16-29. Yogyakarta City Government will make several efforts to ensure there is no expansion of case transmission by intensifying screening to several community groups.

"Case growth in Yogyakarta is already quite low and to ensure there is no case transmission, we will intensify screening", said Heroe Poerwadi, Head of the Yogyakarta COVID-19 Handling Task Force, quoted by Antara, Tuesday, November 16.

According to him, the screening will be carried out on several community groups, one of which is school students and teachers who have been doing face-to-face learning for the past two months.

"I think screening of students and teachers is an integral part to ensure there is no transmission in schools or from face-to-face learning activities", he said.

In addition to students and teachers, there will also be a screening of state civil servants who work within the Yogyakarta City Government and have direct daily contact with the community to provide public services.

"Next week, it is hoped that a more intensive screening process with the rapid antigen test method can be carried out", he said.

On Tuesday, November 16, there were two additional confirmed positive cases of COVID-19 in Yogyakarta City with three patients declared cured or completed isolation and no patient died. Thus, the total active cases in the city of Yogyakarta remain 27 cases.

Based on the tracking of close contacts of active cases, Heroe said, the transmission rate was quite low.

“There are only one or two cases that come from close contact. The rest, patients do not know how to get infected", he said.

Meanwhile, according to Heroe, the status of level two PPKM which is still pinned for Yogyakarta City and all other districts in DIY, will actually make people remain cautious in carrying out various daily activities.

"I think this level two status can actually make people remain cautious. Moreover, several other areas show an upward trend in cases", he said.

While at level two, Heroe said, various community activities could still run well even though they had to be carried out with restrictions.

“However, we believe that if we look at various indicators, the City of Yogyakarta can be said to have entered level one. Vaccination is complete and case growth is low. But because it is an agglomeration area, Yogyakarta is still at level two”, he said.