South Sulawesi Will Deploy RT/RW To Identify Residents Who Have Not Received COVID-19 Vaccination

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MAKASSAR - The South Sulawesi Provincial Government will deploy RT/RW (Neighborhood Unit/Community) at the village level to record residents who have not been vaccinated and those who have been vaccinated against COVID-19.

Acting Head of the South Sulawesi Provincial Health Office, Dr. Arman Bausat, said regional heads in a number of regencies and cities admitted that it was difficult to get vaccination targets, even though the coverage had not yet reached 100 percent.

"Now we are starting to direct the governor to activate RT/RW to record residents who have been vaccinated and have not been vaccinated. We will ask the regent and mayor for this," he said, as quoted by Antara, Tuesday, March 1.

Doctor Arman said, after the data is received, identification by name by address will be carried out to make it easier for the district government to target residents who have not been vaccinated, as well as those whose primary vaccines have not been completed.

"So there is no longer any excuse that there is no target, because we already have the data," he said.

According to Dr. Arman, the speed of vaccination must continue to be intensified following the increase in cases of COVID-19 with the presence of the omicron variant, which spreads four times faster than the delta variant. Moreover, the death toll from COVID-19 in South Sulawesi is starting to increase again.

In addition, continued Dr. Arman, the Ministry of Health has also released that 85 percent of patients who died due to the Omicron variant of COVID-19 were patients who had not been vaccinated or the vaccine was incomplete.

"In South Sulawesi it's the same, on average those who enter the hospital are grandmothers and on average the vaccines are incomplete. To get maximum immunity, the vaccine must also be complete," he explained.

As of February 28, the South Sulawesi COVID-19 Task Force recorded that the coverage of dose 1 was 84.71 percent, while dose 2 was 56.92 percent.