Epidemiologist: Prokes Must Be Tightened To Anticipate The Spike Of COVID-19

UNSPLASH ILLUSTRATION

JAKARTA - Epidemiologist from the Center for Environmental and Population Health at Griffith University Australia, Dicky Budiman, said that tightening of the 3T, 5M health protocols and accelerated vaccination was still needed to anticipate the surge in positive cases of COVID-19.

According to him, the worsening of the pandemic situation in Europe and Asia is a signal that the program needs to be tightened considering that 40 percent of the total population in Indonesia has not been vaccinated.

"Currently, a number of countries in the world are experiencing an increase in COVID-19 cases, such as in Europe and China. Even though they have intensively vaccinated, they are now overwhelmed by the rising rate of virus infection," said Dicky in the webinar "Inputting the COVID-19 Control Roadmap" quoted by Antara, Friday, November 19.

The decline in positive cases of COVID-19 nationally should not keep the public off guard because the combination of the unvaccinated population, increased mobilization, and the presence of the Delta variant can take a toll.

"Although not as big as the second wave, the third wave of COVID-19 in Indonesia has the potential to occur in the first quarter of 2022, assuming there is no more 'super' variant than Delta circulating in Indonesia. This is a vulnerable moment, so that public compliance in implementing health protocols must be stricter, especially with high mobility and a shortened quarantine period," added Dicky, who is also the compiler of the COVID-19 Impact Control and Recovery Adaptation Roadmap.

Dicky said the academic paper of the Roadmap for Adaptation to Control and Recovery from the Impact of COVID-19 provides directions on what steps need to be taken by all parties in Indonesia to accelerate the transition from the pandemic to endemic in order to achieve health development targets.

This roadmap reveals six main problems in the Indonesian health sector that need to be mitigated in an effort to recover from the impact of COVID-19, namely the herd immunity threshold that has not been achieved, early detection and prevention, capacity of health facilities when cases spike, adaptive public behavior, coordination and monitoring, and quality. potentially declining health services.

This roadmap offers a solution in the form of policies to encourage people to adapt amid COVID-19 so that the health sector can recover quickly. This is done by increasing vaccinations, communicating the risk of the continued spread of COVID-19, implementing trace-isolation tests, carrying out anti-virus therapy. , conduct surveillance, carry out border control, implement 5M behavior.

Then improve air quality, provide incentives to health workers, protect vulnerable groups, conduct periodic evaluations, strengthen health sector facilities and infrastructure, provide funding and conduct research and health diplomacy.

“The combination of improving vaccination programs and being consistent in adhering to the 5Ms is the most important thing during this pandemic. In addition, policies from the government and information dissemination must always be ensured to the public to remote areas of the country to minimize the impact,” said Dicky.

On the other hand, Dicky believes that handling the COVID-19 pandemic is different from handling natural disasters because pandemics can occur in several waves, so the recovery process is more complicated.