Faisal Basri Questioned The Effectiveness Of Pfizer And Moderna Vaccines: Not Tested But Ordered

Illustration. (Photo: Unsplash)

JAKARTA - Senior economist Faisal Basri said the high number of active cases of COVID-19 in Indonesia was inseparable from the way the government responded to it. So far, the key step that the government has not taken in handling COVID-19 is testing.

"The key that has not been done until now is testing. As a result, the fatality rate is also high. Before testing the high fatality rate, Indonesia was the highest in ASEAN. Number 2 in Asia and higher than the world average of 2.35, Indonesia 3.18," he said, in a virtual discussion, Thursday, November 26.

Faisal regretted that the number of testing did not move, it was still in the range of 2,000 per 1 million population. In fact, he said, in the imposition of the COVID-19 pandemic, especially testing, Indonesia was only better than 12 countries in Africa and three countries in Asia, namely Myanmar, Afghanistan and Bangladesh.

"That alone is lower than us. All countries whose testing is smaller than Indonesia are those with low income and lower income," he said.

However, said Faisal, there were five countries with lower income countries that were poorer than Indonesia, but the testing was much greater. For example Nepal with a total of 57 thousand, and the Philippines 50 thousand. Meanwhile, Indonesia has only reached 19 thousand.

"Then want to jump to vaccines like that? The vaccines have not been tested like Pfizer and Moderna, how much effectiveness has not been tested, but have already been ordered. Implementation is difficult, how to deliver them, it is not clear yet," he said.

Faisal said the government could not only rely on vaccines to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic, without taking other anticipatory steps.

"So it's hard for us to imagine that when we jump to the vaccine then don't do anything. This then becomes my concern," he said.