National Police Chief Instructs Accelerated Vaccination Of Elderly And Children

National Police Chief General Listyo Sigit Prabowo/Polri Public Relations DOK

JAKARTA - The National Police Chief, General Listyo Sigit Prabowo, has instructed all ranks of the National Police to work together with related parties to accelerate the implementation of COVID-19 vaccination for the elderly and children to reach the 70 percent target.

"The elderly are also at 60 percent, they can immediately pursue targets for children, especially those aged 6 to 11 years, that can be accelerated immediately. We have given targets for several areas to be able to complete this within two weeks to reach 100 percent", said Sigit was quoted by Antara from a written statement, Tuesday, January 11.

The instruction was conveyed by Sigit while reviewing the acceleration of simultaneous vaccination acceleration activities throughout Indonesia by being present in person at the Graha Wangsa Building, Lampung.

In his instructions, Sigit said that accelerating vaccination for the elderly and children is important considering the 100 percent face-to-face learning (PTM) policy has been started.

According to the four-star general, the acceleration of vaccination for the elderly and children can minimize the risk of spreading the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19 which continues to mutate into several variants.

"This is important because PTM has started to open, so like it or not there is the potential for close contact, the potential for "carriers" and new clusters to emerge if we don't anticipate it. Therefore, the only way is how to accelerate vaccination", said Sigit.

The former Head of Criminal Investigation Unit of the Indonesian National Police also highlighted the issue of the Omicron variant that has entered the country, where most of the cases came from imports from abroad or foreign travel agents.

Sigit explained that the Omicron variant can infect people who have received the vaccine. However, the fatality rate caused to be low because it has received a vaccine injection. This is different from people who have not received vaccinations, the level of risk is much higher.

"We take care of people who are vulnerable, the elderly and those who have comorbidities who have not been vaccinated", said Sigit.

To minimize the severe impact of the Omicron variant, the former Banten Police Chief appealed to people who have not been vaccinated to immediately visit the vaccine outlets that have been prepared by the local government. In addition, he asked the regional police chiefs to cooperate with the TNI, Binda volunteers, and the National Population and Family Planning Agency (BKKBN) to convince families to want to be vaccinated.

"Because this is right in front of our eyes. We have been able to maintain within 167 days the numbers are stable. But if this new variant comes in, we have to keep this trend starting to increase", said Sigit.

Sigit also asked the staff to provide education to the public regarding the importance of vaccination and apply strict and disciplined health protocols. The local government and the police are also asked to carry out 'tracing' and testing activities if there are clusters in one area.

The National Police Chief also held a virtual interactive dialogue on the implementation of this simultaneous vaccination in the regions of Papua, West Sulawesi, West Sumatra, Central Java, East Java, and DKI Jakarta.

While giving the briefing, Sigit hoped that several regions that had already reached the 70 percent target would immediately move towards achieving 100 percent. Some regions have their own time targets to achieve 100 percent, ranging from two weeks, one month to less than 10 days.

"That's why I ask other regions whose achievements are still below 70 or already 70 but the age of the elderly has not reached 60 percent, especially children and teenagers. Please improve", said Sigit.