Ministry Of Health: We Need To Be Optimistic Towards 2022, We Can't Be Tired Of Facing The Pandemic

Spokesperson for Vaccination of the Ministry of Health Siti Nadia Tirmizi/Antara

JAKARTA - Spokesperson for Vaccination of the Ministry of Health, Siti Nadia Tirmizi, is optimistic that the COVID-19 pandemic in Indonesia will be under control by 2022.

"We all need to be optimistic that towards 2022 we must not be tired of facing the pandemic because we are still struggling together. We have also seen how our health resilience and resilience were tested in July 2021 when positive cases of COVID-19 were so high," said Nadia in the Productive Dialogue Friday which followed in Jakarta, Friday, December 3.

Nadia said the Ministry of Health continued to work through the enforcement of health protocols, testing-tracing-treatment, and COVID-19 vaccination so that daily positive cases remained sloping. Thus, the uncertainty posed by the new variant of COVID-19 can be prevented.

"We still have to carry out this because we ourselves cannot predict when the pandemic will end. But we will continue to make efforts in that direction," he said.

Meanwhile, the Research Director of the Center of Reform on Economics Piter Abdullah is also optimistic that Indonesia will be able to face the COVID-19 pandemic in 2022.

"This will be our provision to enter 2022 with strong confidence that we can overcome the pandemic and the economy will recover along with the easing of the pandemic. We must hold on to that confidence and optimism," he said as quoted by Antara.

Currently, with the slowing down of daily positive cases of COVID-19 in Indonesia, the intensity of various economic activities is increasing, such as consumption, investment and exports.

He also estimates that the national economy in the fourth quarter of 2021 will grow again to 7.07 percent year on year as in the second quarter of 2021.

"I estimate that our economic growth in the fourth quarter of 2021 will return to the same as the second quarter," he said.

Piter assessed that the achievement of economic growth in the third quarter of 2021, which was 3.51 percent year on year, was actually quite good.

​The reason is that at that time Indonesia was still able to maintain positive economic growth even though it was facing a high wave of COVID-19 cases.