Jokowi Will Lead The First COVID-19 Vaccination On January 13

President Joko Widodo (Presidential Secretariat YouTube)

JAKARTA - Minister of Home Affairs (Mendagri) Tito Karnavian said the government will schedule the first symbolic injection of the COVID-19 vaccination led by President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) on January 13.

Tito said the vaccination will then be continued on January 14-15, 2021. He emphasized that even though the mass vaccination will be held, the health protocol of wearing masks, washing hands and maintaining distance (3M) must still be applied.

"We must not be lax about 3M, not only wearing masks, keep our distance and wash our hands properly and often, but the crowd. This can be a superspreader, it's useless for us to do tracing, there's no point if there's still a crowd, "he said as quoted by Antara, Tuesday, January 5.

The Minister of Home Affairs reminded that this mass vaccination should be well socialized so as not to cause a riot or rush in the community.

"Do not let a riot occur because vaccines seem like gold, there can be seizures, crowds, etc.," continued Tito.

Therefore, the Minister of Home Affairs asked regional heads to make regulations related to situations that could potentially cause crowds and coordinate with the TNI / Polri and Satpol PP and establish a COVID-19 Command Post in each area.

Meanwhile, Doni Monardo, Chair of the Task Force for Handling COVID-19, said that the public must be disciplined in carrying out health protocols by wearing masks, keeping their distance and not crowding.

"The narrative about this vaccine should not make the public think that after the vaccine, everything will be finished, no, the vaccine will not immediately stop COVID-19, the vaccine will not make people who are not vaccinated also escape COVID-19," he said .

Doni also asked the provincial and district / city governments to work hard to increase the capacity of hospital isolation rooms with the support of the central government. Local governments are also asked to establish posko starting from the provincial level to the village level.