So That The Public Understands, President Jokowi Asks For Vaccinations In West Papua To Involve Religious Figures

Screenshot - President Joko Widodo receives a report from the Aceh Police Chief Inspector General Ahmad Haydar (Presidential Secretariat Youtube via ANTARA)

JAKARTA - President Joko Widodo asked the implementation of vaccination in West Papua to involve local religious leaders to provide an understanding of the importance of COVID-19 vaccination to the community.

This was conveyed by Jokowi during a virtual review of the implementation of vaccinations in 12 provinces from the Bogor Presidential Palace, West Java, Thursday, February 17. "For West Papua, really all people are invited. Involve religious leaders so that they provide direct understanding to the population," said President Jokowi, quoted from Antara.

Jokowi also appreciated the cooperation carried out by the regional government in West Papua with the ranks of the TNI/Polri in the implementation of vaccinations. However, the President hopes that the acceleration of vaccination can continue.

"The cooperation between the regional government and the National Police, TNI and other Forkopimda ranks, I think is good. But the speed of vaccination so that the percentage can be achieved immediately, must be pursued immediately," he said.

On that occasion the West Papuan Police Chief Inspector General Tornagogo Sihombing reported to the President that currently West Papua Province is in a safe and conducive situation. According to him, there were 1,819 people being treated for COVID-19, of which 1,647 were self-isolating.

He also said that so far no West Papuan people have died from the Omicron variant, although based on the samples tested, the variant has been detected in West Papua.

Furthermore, regarding the development of vaccination, Tornagogo said that his party continues to work hard to vaccinate the people of West Papua with the existing conditions and situations of the community.

He said, based on the 2020 West Papua population census data, which reached 1,134,068 people, then to create communal immunity, COVID-19 vaccination must be injected into at least 70 percent of the population, which is around more than 790,000 people.

Until now, referring to the 2020 West Papua population census data, his party has carried out 58.2 percent of the first dose of vaccination, the second dose of 38.5 percent and the third dose of 1.7 percent.

However, Tornagogo reports that the 2020 census data was obtained from the National Identity Card. However, the fact is that quite a lot of West Papuans live or live outside West Papua.

So that his party did a manual calculation of population data involving the head of the RT, the ranks of the bhabinkamtibmas and babinsa as well as the ranks of the police chief and the dandim. The results of manual calculations show that the population of West Papua in the West Papua region is 754,214 people.

"And if we refer to 70 percent of the 754,000, to create herd immunity we have to inject as many as 528,068 people. So if we have injected the first 463,000 doses, it means that we have injected 87.8 percent. And for the second dose, we have already injected 58.2 percent. Because we are talking about real data," he explained.

Tornagogo said that currently it has submitted to the Ministry of Health to increase the stock of the Sinovac vaccine, to accelerate vaccination by 70 percent by the end of February or mid-March 2022.