Task Force: Sea And Land Entrances Dominate Positivity Rates

COVID-19 Task Force Spokesperson Wiku Adisasmito/ Antara

JAKARTA - Head of the Expert Team for the COVID-19 Handling Task Force Prof. Wiku Adisasmito said that Indonesia's borders at sea and land entrances dominate the import positivity rate for SARS-CoV-2 which causes COVID-19.

"The government will continue to tighten testing and tracing efforts at all arrival gates considering the positivity rate of arrivals at sea and land gates is 10 times higher than at air entrances," said Wiku Adisasmito when delivering a press statement on the development of the COVID-19 pandemic in Indonesia which followed by BNPB's YouTube in Jakarta, Thursday, December 23.

Wiku detailed that the positivity rate on 12-18 December 2021 at the airport was 0.48 percent, at the sea gate 5.401 percent and at the land gate 1.3 percent.

The spokesperson for the COVID-19 Handling Task Force said that the effort to tighten supervision at all national entrances was a follow-up to the government's findings on the Omicron case, which so far has eight cases in the country.

Based on the results of the Whole Genome Sequencing (WGS) examination carried out this week, said Wiku, it was reported that there were three new positive cases of Omicron in Indonesia, namely an Indonesian citizen who came from Malaysia and two Indonesian citizens who came from Congo. "So until today eight positive cases of Omicron," he said.

Considering this, said Wiku, the government will further tighten the supervision of international travelers at the entrance of the country, either by land, sea or air.

"It should be noted together that all the Omicron cases that have been caught at this time were found from foreign travelers who entered through the air gate," he said. This was reported by Antara.