Avoid Omicron, Sandiaga Asks Residents Not To Vacation Abroad, Only Domestic Tourism

Menparekraf Sandiaga Uno/PHOTO VIA ANTARA

JAKARTA - Minister of Tourism and Creative Economy (Menparekraf) Sandiaga Uno asked all tourism and creative economy activities to be carried out in Indonesia in order to avoid the spread of the Omicron variant of COVID-19 that occurred in various countries.

"We see that there is starting to be an awareness of tourism actors and the creative economy to strictly implement the health protocols as we have observed in Bali and in several tourist destinations," he said in the Weekly Press Briefing quoted by Antara, Monday, December 20.

Sandiaga said that anyone traveling abroad could be canceled immediately, especially if there was no urgent and important need.

In an effort to anticipate the spread of Omicron, he continued, the 10-day quarantine will still be implemented. Based on observations, nearly 4,000 travelers went from abroad and into the country.

“There are strong indications the government will consider implementing a 14-day quarantine. Later, it will be the largest, especially for those who enter from abroad because of all the (omicron) cases that are present in Indonesia, all of them come from abroad," said the Minister of Tourism and Creative Economy.

President Joko Widodo has ordered that there should be no delay in responding to Omicron, which has spread to around 95 countries, including 11 countries that are prohibited from coming to Indonesia and additional countries namely Britain, Denmark, and Norway.

"So the (COVID-19) screening process must be tightened, centralized quarantine is strictly carried out, and the number of vaccinations is also increased," said Sandiaga.

President Jokowi is stated to have directed that ministries/agencies be given assistance in the implementation of suppressing the spread of COVID-19 by means of early examination (testing), tracing, treatment, and vaccination.

The Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy has so far facilitated the vaccination of more than 705,000 people involved in the tourism and creative economy sector (parekraf) and will continue to increase considering that vaccine stocks are still available for the next two to three months.