This Is The Reason Why The Government Continues To Reduce The Quarantine Period For Foreign Travelers Amid The Threat Of Omicron

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JAKARTA - The government has decided to reduce the duration of quarantine for foreign travelers (PPLN) entering Indonesia from 7 days to 5 days. The reduction in the quarantine period is currently set as the spread of the Omicron variant of COVID-19 continues to expand.

Previously, the government had also reduced the quarantine period from 10 days to 7 days since early January. At that time, the Omicron case had been transmitted through local transmission.

The head of the COVID-19 Task Force, Suharyanto, explained the government's reason for reducing the duration of international travel quarantine.

The government's consideration of reducing quarantine from 10 days to 7 days was because at that time the local transmission Omicron variant had spread in many countries, including Indonesia.

"It turns out that Omicron has spread to almost hundreds of countries, so the government evaluates its policy of being quarantined for 7 days on average for all foreign travelers entering Indonesia, both Indonesian citizens and foreigners," said Suharyanto in his statement, Friday, February 4. Then, when the government decided to again reduce the quarantine duration to 5 days, the consideration was that local transmission of Omicron had dominated more than the number of imported cases from abroad.

"The latest development is because Omicron is no longer only from foreign travelers, even the evaluation results show that local transmissions have actually increased in number, so the quarantine has been changed to 5 days," said Suharyanto.

Although there was a reduction in the duration of the quarantine, Suharyanto emphasized that this was in accordance with the consideration that the incubation period for the Omicron variant of the corona virus was fast, with a minimum of 3 days of infection.

"Once again, the government's policy regarding quarantine is not meant to increase the burden on foreign travellers, but all for the sake of security and prudence," he explained.