JAKARTA - The Indonesian Ministry of Health has again detected two confirmed patients with the Omicron variant in the country, bringing the total cases as of Friday, December 17 to three, said an official from the Indonesian Ministry of Health.
"The two most recent confirmed patients are IKWJ (42) male, traveling from South America, and M (50) male traveling from England. Currently,y both are undergoing quarantine at Wisma Atlet", said COVID-19 Vaccination Spokesperson, Siti Nadia Tarmizi, through a written statement received in Jakarta, Saturday.
Nadia said the two patients were the results of the examination of samples from five probable cases of Omicron who had just returned from abroad. The first Omicron patient was confirmed on Thursday, December 16, with the initials N, a cleaning worker at Wisma Atlet Kemayoran.
This finding is the result of a special 'S-gene target failure' (SGTF) examination conducted by the Health Research and Development Agency on December 14 and 15, 2021.
The two newest patients were confirmed by Omicron after undergoing mandatory ten-day quarantine after returning from abroad. According to Nadia, this condition shows that the government's protection system is running well to prevent transmission from foreign arrivals who are infected with the COVID-19 virus.
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Regarding the findings of the two new cases of Omicron, Nadia appealed to the public to remain vigilant and not to travel abroad first. Especially considering the rate of spread of Omicron proved to be very fast.
“Indonesia is one of the safest countries from COVID-19. If we leave the country, then we will move out of the safe zone to the danger zone. If he returns, they will have the potential to bring Omicron to Indonesia and will certainly damage this already conducive situation", she said as quoted by Antara, Saturday, December 18.
COVID-19 cases in several European, African, and American countries, said Nadia, currently jumped sharply to reach record highs along with the spread of the Omicron variant, which has five times the transmission power of the Delta variant.
The Delta variant once led Indonesia to record highs of COVID-19 transmission in May and June 2021, which resulted in pressure from medical personnel in health facilities.
The government predicts that the backflow of Indonesian citizens who are currently abroad or who will travel abroad in the next week will reach its peak in the first and second weeks of January 2022 as the Christmas and New Year holidays end.
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