Minister Of Health: People Who Have Completed COVID-19 Vaccinations And Boosters Are Most Likely To Be Infected With Omicron

Minister of Health Budi Gunadi Sadikin/DOK VIA ANTARA

JAKARTA - Health Minister, Budi Gunadi Sadikin, said those who had received two doses of the COVID-19 vaccine and even received a booster could still be exposed to the Omicron variant.

He conveyed this after seeing the condition of several countries in Europe that experienced a lot of deployment of this new variant. In fact, the vaccination coverage there is already very high.

"It has been proven now that the ability of post-infection virus neutralization and immunization is decreased against Omicron compared to other variants. There is a high possibility that some people who have been fully vaccinated or booster will still be infected with Omicron", said Budi in a press conference broadcast on the Presidential Secretariat's YouTube, Monday on December 20.

Even so, Budi asked the public to immediately vaccinate against COVID-19 and not choose which vaccine they would get. "We urge the public to speed up vaccinations", said the former Deputy Minister of SOEs.

The Minister of Health said that the injection of this vaccination needs to be done to prevent the possible spread of the Omicron variant in the community. "Please, our most frequent vaccinations now are Pfizer and AstraZeneca. You don't have to choose what type of vaccine, just get vaccinated right away", said Budi.

The Minister of Health explained that currently there are 107 million people who have received two doses of the vaccine. Thus, he believes the World Health Organization (WHO) target of 40 percent of the total vaccination target will be achieved in the not too distant future.

"We think that in the next two days we will be able to achieve the WHO target of 40 percent of the population for two injections", he explained.

Meanwhile, 542,000 injections have been given for children's vaccines, which have been implemented since last week. "This is a good number", concluded Budi.