Ministry Of Health: The Omicron Risk Is Already In The Community

Illustration UNSPLASH

JAKARTA - Spokesperson for the Ministry of Health, Siti Nadia Tarmizi, stated that the findings of the first Omicron local transmission case in Medan-Jakarta travelers gave a warning to the public that the risk of transmission was already in the community.

"It should be our concern that a case of local transmission of Omicron has been identified. This means that we remind you that the risk of transmission is already in the community," said Siti Nadia Tarmizi, quoted by Antara, Wednesday, December 29.

Nadia said that currently there are 21 additional confirmed cases of Omicron, which are foreign travelers. Consisting of 16 Indonesian citizens and five foreigners. The total number of Omicron cases as of Wednesday, December 29 was 68 people.

The origins of the overseas travelers are mostly Indonesian migrant workers from Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

According to the Director of Prevention and Control of Vector and Zoonotic Diseases of the Directorate General of P2P at the Ministry of Health, there were nine cases with mild symptoms and 12 with no symptoms.

Currently, five Omicron cases, which have positive confirmation, are being treated at the Sulianti Saroso Hospital and 16 others are at the Wisma Athlete Hospital.

"Once again, we remind Indonesian citizens to postpone traveling abroad because of the high risk of transmission," he said.

Even if you are abroad, said Nadia, you will still carry out the health protocols that apply in the country or in the process of traveling back to Indonesia.

Of the total 68 Omicron patients, said Nadia, all of them have received the full dose of the COVID-19 vaccination. "The cases found are asymptomatic cases (without symptoms) and with mild symptoms," he said.

The results of case tracking conducted by the Ministry of Health reported that patients had traveled abroad, dominated by countries from Turkey, Saudi Arabia, London and the United States.

"We urge, of course, by looking at such a pattern for Indonesian citizens to delay travel to countries which we then identify as cases that have quite a lot of confirmed cases of Omicron infection," he said.