JAKARTA - The Presidential Staff Office (KSP) stated that the policy of removing the requirements for antigen testing and PCR for domestic travel was not to accelerate the determination of the status of the COVID-19 pandemic as endemic.
KSP Main Expert Staff Abraham Wirotomo said the relaxation of the travel conditions was taken because the current COVID-19 pandemic situation was getting more under control.
"The data on the development of cases, the occupancy of beds in hospitals, and the effective reproduction rate of COVID-19, all show that the pandemic is increasingly being well controlled. This is the basis why PPKM levels have been lowered in several areas and include relaxation of testing for travellers," said Abraham in a written statement in Jakarta, Tuesday, March 8.
He refuted the opinion that the abolition of the requirements for antigen testing and PCR to show that the government was lax regarding COVID-19 testing.
According to him, the government is currently more specific in examining the spread of COVID-19, by using an active surveillance approach, either through case finding or Active Case Finding (ACF), as well as epidemiological testing.
"Simply put, active surveillance is from the government which is actively pursuing targets by targeting certain areas such as ACF in schools. Random tests will be carried out on students and teachers for early detection of whether there is a cluster or not. Then the close contact testing is still being continued. , said Abraham.
He added that the government was increasingly considering the conclusion of the data that the impact of the Omicron variant of COVID-19 was milder than the Delta.
"For this reason, hospital occupancy rates and deaths are more important than cases (additions)," he said.
KSP reminded that the policy of eliminating the requirements for antigen testing and PCR for domestic travelers was only applied to people who had received two doses of vaccine or were complete.
"So people who don't want to do more testing if they want to fly, then immediately complete the vaccine," said Abraham.
Previously, the Coordinator for the Implementation of the Java-Bali Community Activity Restrictions (PPKM) Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan revealed that domestic travelers no longer needed to attach negative antigen or PCR test results. This new regulation is specifically for people who have been vaccinated with two doses or completely.
This policy, he said, has drawn criticism from a number of experts because testing for COVID-19 is still considered important to measure the progress of the COVID-19 pandemic.
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