Omicron "stealth" In South Korea Until Singapore Makes Cases Soar But Indonesia Doesn't, This Is The Minister Of Health's Explanation

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JAKARTA - Minister of Health, Budi Gunadi Sadikin, said that currently the majority of countries in Asia, including Indonesia, have detected cases of COVID-19, the Omicron variant with the BA.2 subvariance. This subvariant is known as the "stealth" Omicron.

The spread of Omicron BA.2, said Budi, caused a spike in COVID-19 cases in several of these countries. However, this condition does not occur in Indonesia and India.

"In Asian countries such as South Korea, Japan, Singapore, including China and Hong Kong, the increase is due to the BA.2 variant. In Indonesia, the pattern is somewhat different. This variant is already dominant in Indonesia and India. However, the BA.2 variant is dominant. This is not seen in the form of a spike in cases", Budi said on the Indonesian Ministry of Health's Youtube channel, quoted on Thursday, March 24.

In Indonesia, the trend of COVID-19 cases actually shows a decline even though the BA.2 subvariant has spread. The case reproduction rate or reproduction rate is also close to 1.

"According to epidemiologist estimates, maybe the end of this month can return to October-November (2021), where our reproduction rate is below 1", said Budi.

Currently, the government has not researched the different conditions that occurred in Indonesia and other countries in Asia due to the transmission of BA.2.

However, Budi suspects this is because Indonesia has started its COVID-19 vaccination slower than in countries where cases are currently on the rise due to the "stealth" spread of Omicron.

"Our start of vaccination is relatively slow compared to Singapore, South Korea, and Japan. We only started massively vaccinating in September and above. So, the antibody level possessed by the Indonesian people is still high", explained Budi.

In addition, when Indonesia began to massively intensify vaccinations for the general public, a period of the spike in cases due to transmission of the Delta variant had just occurred.

The large number of cases of infection that have been cured, coupled with the massive vaccination, continued Budi, resulted in the immunity of the Indonesian people becoming more immune.

"The combination of these two immunities creates super immunity, the immunity that is strong and lasts longer. Thus, the government sees that we should be able to relax our health protocols more", he added.